371. How Tamara Payne Has Built a Community-Focused AND Profitable Coworking Space That Runs Without Her
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
TRANSCRIPTION
371. How Tamara Payne Has Built a Community-Focused AND Profitable Coworking Space That Runs Without Her
00:00:00,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how to's 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 joining me today. We have a very compelling guest today, Tamara Payne, founder of Ensemble Coworking in Fort Worth, Texas and I just want to highlight a few of the nuggets that she shared so that you can be listening to them throughout the episode. I've been trying to not interrupt guests too much to sort of dive into some of the nuggets that I hear and I thought I just going to put this into the intro because I think her story is really interesting."
00:01:18,"I think she will be especially interesting to those of you who are trying to sort of pull into the CEO role, work on the business less in the business. She has promoted her community manager to the COO role and that's one of the first things I'll highlight is that she found a community manager unicorn. Or should I say he found her. He's in our community manager program. I got to meet both Tamara and Clint at the GWA conference in 2023, which was awesome."
00:01:50,"We did not get to spend a lot of time together, so it was so nice to hear the Ensemble story and hear more about how Tamara has grown that business and stepped into a full CEO role. She does. It's not even officing at this space, which I love. And we talked about how ironic that is. But she found or Clint found her, but they found each other. She has a just a unicorn of a community manager and we talked about how important that is."
00:02:19,"And you know, just to remind you that if you're in a season where that is not your situation, they're findable. So keep looking and that can make all the difference. A few other things I just want to highlight that Tamara shared she has I'm getting into the weeds a little bit here. She gets some leads from Peerspace so if you are not listed with Peerspace, get on it."
00:02:47,"She has a large meeting room that can seat up to 50. It says that on the website didn't confirm that with her. She called it a training room and she leaned into that because of her story and who she wanted to serve. And she is just a huge connector in the Fort Worth community. And so she wanted a place where she could host networking events and that has really paid off."
00:03:10,"She, they host a lot of larger events. She knew that there was a need for it because she had been looking for it for years and had been dissatisfied with what she was finding. So they do really well with their meeting rooms and leading into that large meeting room. So kind of zooming out 100% they are focused on their members. Hospitality and community are absolutely their core values."
00:03:36,"If you read their Google reviews, you will see that through and through. And yet they have 23 offices in a 7,500 square foot space. So that's. It's not like Regis style, but it's a good number of offices to create a profitable space. So despite having 23 offices which probably cover her rent, she has a really strong community and a team that is very focused on building community and that can make all the difference because it's hard to have the energy to focus on community when you don't have a profitable space."
00:04:13,"She did get lucky. They have a fantastic location which we talk about. It's retail level, she has parking. There's just a lot of great things about her location and it was a second gen space and she had to do very minimal build out. So lucky. But if you are patient you may find something like that too. And again that just the combination of her build out their core values, the team and their location, this, you know, they've done very well with the, with the space which, and Tamara shares some details around that."
00:04:48,"One other thing related to her member profile, she in particular is very passionate about the micro business owner. So small business owners, even smaller like you, like me, she, you know, really lives to serve that community. But she also has attorneys in her space. Not for profits in her space and she loves those folks because they're very reliable and they pay the bills and they are absolutely a part of the community even if they aren't looking for the level of engagement that some of her members are."
00:05:21,"And her, the attorney community in Fort Worth uses her meeting rooms and probably doesn't blink an eye at whatever the hourly rate is. So I know sometimes we have this either or mentality like we're either a community focused space and we're not necessarily going to be profitable or we're not going to have, you know, attorney type users in our space. You can have both. And I think Tamara is just a great example of, you know, leveraging the security of those types of members to serve her other members."
00:05:54,"She also has dedicated desks that sell really well. So that's. It's just always fun to hear what's working for some because sometimes those don't work for others. So those are a few of the nuggets. And absolutely, you know, you're going to love listening to the full interview and getting the full context. She's just a great story. One other thing I wanted to highlight that she mentioned is focusing on one thing at a time."
00:06:20,"She, you know, kind of gave the advice of as entrepreneurs, we have to learn to be patient and also learn to have accountability and focus. And so I this is super timely because we're hosting a Q1 2025 planning session for coworking space community managers and owners on December 11th. And the whole goal of this is exactly what Tamara shared, is to acknowledge that we want every aspect of our business to grow today or yesterday, but that is not how it works."
00:06:52,"And so we are going to focus on the 12 week year. So focusing on two to three goals to focus on in Q1 to start moving the needle. So she talked about the fact that when they first opened, she wanted to grow memberships and meeting rooms, but she could only do one of those at a time. But over the years, and she's been open for eight years, she now has memberships, meeting rooms, virtual plans that are all just running really well."
00:07:21,"And of course she can spend focus time on each one of them, you know, every quarter. But she's taken the time to focus on one at a time and build it and then shift focus and then maybe come back, you know, when something needs to be tweaked or, you know, a pivot is required. But I thought she was just such a great example. And really, that is really what's behind our drive to do this Q1 planning session."
00:07:48,"So if that appeals to you, you can join us. You can go to quarterly.com and grab your seat. There is a small fee to join. It's $47. And we are doing that just so that we capture your attention. You commit to it, put it on your calendar and show up. If you can't come, there will be a recording. But it's going to be much better to be there live."
00:08:11,"We have 75 people signed up already, so I love that. I'm so excited. It's going to be a great community. We're going to learn a lot from each Other. And we're going to workshop a plan for Q1. So coworking quarterly.com is where you can grab your seat to that. And now, without further ado, here is my conversation with Tamara Payne. Welcome. I am here with Tamara Payne."
00:08:35,"She is the founder of Ensemble Coworking in Fort Worth, Texas. Although she's originally a Jersey girl. Yes, I am. You can take me out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of me. That's for sure. I think that's 100% true. I love it. My. Actually, I had two job offers out of college. One of them was for Morristown, New Jersey. Okay. But I went to Chicago instead, so."
00:09:03,"But you know how you have those forks in the road. I was like, I could have lived my life in New Jersey. Who knows what? Hey, I went to school in East Texas, and that is. Okay. So is that how you ended up? Yeah, from. From the city. Like, I took a taxi from. I took a bus to a town, and a taxi from that town to the other town."
00:09:22,"Well, the taxi was a van. And then when I got into the town, the little. In commerce is where it was. The little bus depot was like a little small square closet. And they're like, we'll lock your luggage in at 6am they're like, nobody's here. I said, okay, what do I care now? Yeah, it was total culture shock, but I loved it and adapted. And I've been in Texas now for 34 and a half years."
00:09:47,"No. And here you are. Right. Okay. What did you study in school? I studied radio, television communications. So I went to. Yeah. And then I worked in TV news afterwards. I did. I worked at channel five and channel. I went from channel five to 11 to four, and then went out, left and went into marketing and started my own marketing business. Okay, that's so interesting. Wait, I don't think I saw that on your LinkedIn profile."
00:10:11,"I think because it was so long ago, I don't have that even in, you know, it's like I was like, why? I. You know, LinkedIn didn't exist back then. Totally, Right? Yeah. But why go that far back? I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I always have been. So when I. When I tell people my deeper background, I'm like, yeah, I worked in television news and I still have friends and, you know, all local."
00:10:33,"So. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's kind of the. Maybe. Maybe I need to put it on there and say, oh, my hidden talent. Or you people ask you that question of what's the one thing nobody would ever know about? You pull that one out. Totally. And then I also say that I interviewed Bruce Willis when the Hard Rock Cafe opened. Oh, that's so funny. You know what?"
00:10:53,"I did see that somewhere. Is it on your website? I don't know where it's on the website. It might be on the website. Yeah, it might be on my website. Okay. And I was like, oh, I'll have to ask her about that. That's. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I am. So I went to Ithaca College for undergrad, and that's when I thought I would be a news reporter. Oh."
00:11:11,"I think partly because I grew up in a small town, and that's when, like, I just didn't really, like, yeah, I'll be on tv, microphone, of course. But I did. That didn't last long, so. But here I am with the podcast, so I don't know. Now we do. Everything comes full circle, Right? Exactly. Everything comes full circle. Okay, so news reporter, do you cover the news? I covered the news, but I was an assignment Saturday and associate producer, so I was a writer mostly."
00:11:36,"So I did do a little bit of on air, but I kind of, like, traffic controlled all the reporters, helped come up with story ideas, and then I was a producer as well. So writing is my kind of thing. I love to write. Okay. Got it. A ton of on air when I was in college. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So that is a. Makes more sense in terms of a seg into marketing."
00:11:57,"So. Okay, marketing company. Tell us, like, the professional background and then how co. When did co. Working happen, and how did it happen? Right. So. So I launched. So I went into marketing, working for someone else for several years, and then I launched my marketing business shortly after I had my twin girls, because I did not want to go back to working for somebody because. With twin girls."
00:12:17,"Yeah. And I worked so hard to have my girls that I wanted to be able to have that flexibility to be home. So I started off doing a little bit of everything. Graphic design, press releases, building websites back when they were a lot more difficult. Then I taught myself how to do all of this. Right. And. And that kind of pivoted and had a lot of different iterations."
00:12:36,"I did some screen printing. We bought our own equipment, my husband and I, and I did promotional products and printing. So I was very heavy into chambers of commerce and networking. So I had started. I launched, like, the first networking group for my local chamber, and from there, I launched my own networking organization and ended up with three chapters. And so while Doing my business. I grew my business through networking and through people."
00:13:02,"And that's what I loved the most. That was really my big thing was like connecting people to one another and bringing people together. And this is so. I know this is how it all kind of turns out to how I got into coworking. So my business is pivoted. I ended up moving out of doing promotional products and selling stuff and really just doing the. The graphic design and marketing and strategy and giving the overall kind of arching."
00:13:28,"Overall arching look on how to do marketing for companies. Right. And mostly working with small businesses. I worked with a few larger companies here and there, but my. My sweet spot and my preference and my love is working with small business, like micro businesses, you know, who you know. Yeah, there's not a bunch of money to be made with them, but you make more of an impact with them."
00:13:47,"Yeah. So running lots of networking groups and organizations. I was a part of, like an international women's organization, ran their chapter and then helped it grow in Texas. And then I was a part of like a national women's organization. I'm big network of people. And I remember. So when you do marketing, you have a lot of subs, a lot of subcontractors that you work with. And I remember one of them coming to me and say he did websites."
00:14:09,"He's like, I went into this cool place in Dallas the other day and it had like all of the marketing people all in one place. And it was like they were all sharing business. And I was like, oh, that sounds so cool. And he's like, you gotta come see this. So I went over to that and it was. I knew I used to know the name of it and now it's escaped me."
00:14:31,"And I'm sure I'll think of it about an hour in, right? Yeah. But it doesn't have the same name now. Okay. But it is still there. Okay. And it was in a high rise off of 75 Central. And I was like, you know, it was way cool. Different than what coworking has kind of turned into now. But it was a coworking space. And I was like, oh, this is way cool."
00:14:50,"But I don't think I can do this right now. My girls were still a little bit younger and I was like, I don't. That's a big enterprise. But hold that thought. Because I kept running networking groups, right? And I kept saying if I could. If I could take networking, put it into four walls, I would be doing what I love the most. Right. Is like creating a place where everybody's Always together in a community, that kind of thing."
00:15:12,"So fast forward a couple of years. Someone in my women's networking group's like, hey, I'm thinking about starting a coworking space. And I'm like, what? I was like, well, okay, I'd like to talk to you about that. So we start talking and start digging into this. We start looking at properties. And she had not been an entrepreneur before, though. And so we start getting into it and lo and behold, the fir our where we looked first is where we are now."
00:15:40,"Okay. We had looked at a bunch of other places, but then when she saw how risky it is, she came to me and she goes, I don't think I can do this. And I was like, yeah, this is not for the faint of heart. Like you got totally not. It's better to say no if you're young. Right? Do it. Say no now, then later. Yeah. So. So of course I was like, well, if you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and continue with this."
00:16:03,"And so I started continuing to do the research and doing all the work. And this is like 2014 and then 2015. Another friend of mine's like, she works in an architectural firm. She'd been there forever. She's been wanting to get out and go into her life coaching business. And she, she thinks differently than me. I'm way d. Very not detail oriented. Okay. Right. And so I knew that an picture visionary."
00:16:30,"Right? Right, right. Way visionary. Right. And I've adapted, but to get to where I needed to go, I need what I call a butt kicker. Right. Like I needed. I kind of always need one of those. Because, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, I always do this. I'm like, I don't have anybody to answer to but me. And I'm like, in Sundays, I'm not doing a really good job of holding myself accountable at all."
00:16:52,"Yeah, I think that's the biggest conundrum about being an entrepreneur. I mean, I'm the same way. I love. Yeah. Every personality assessment I've ever taken is like, not really a detail, but there's a lot of detail work done if you're. You're going to pay the bills. So. Right. She had these qualities. And so we ended up partnering, which was fantastic. And we kicked it off. The first year she still worked full time."
00:17:17,"So. So anyway, fast forward, you know, I went to Juicy and in Canada before we ever opened. Canada. Okay. Oh, yeah, we're talking 20 was up. What was up next? So you went. That was. I was like, I'M going. And I managed to get there really cheaply. And I was like, I'm going to learn everything I can. Went down to Austin and did like a whole two day tour of like 10 spaces and just talked to everybody."
00:17:39,"And that's when I. Liz. Okay. And with, you know, with lingq at the time and just picked brains and learned and studied and then worked on the proforma that I made at the time that I, you know, it. An optimistic proforma, perhaps. Oh, yeah. I mean, well, we have three versions and we submitted the middle version, which I look back now and I go, wow, that's cuckoo crazy."
00:18:08,"What the heck were we thinking? You know? So I ran the business by myself for a year and a half. And then once her son graduated, she was ready to jump out on her own because she was single. And she's like, okay, I'm ready to do this. She came in, we had an integration problem. We had a hard time with the job titles and really for her to find her place because I now am the center."
00:18:34,"Totally super tricky. I could see that. Yeah. It became a challenge. Yeah. And it. In 2018, we really started seeing like, it just wasn't working. So we opened in 2016. In 2018, we had started having a lot of problems. And 2019, like I, you know, said, drew the line, I'm like, something's gotta happen. This isn't working. We're constantly flip flopping. And I was trying to help her find her way as an entrepreneur and I already knew."
00:19:05,"Right. And. And I understood everything she was going through. But when you got massive overhead. I don't have a lot of time. You just don't have time for that. Yes. So pay the rent. Yes. Yes. So we amicably split in 2019. We managed to save our friendship and I adore her to this day, grateful that she helped me get this off the ground. But like she said, ultimately this was your passion and your love."
00:19:29,"And. And really after that, it just took off and it was kind of like the, the chains were off, so to speak. And now I really take the risks. And so it was in 18. I can't. Whatever year we are in now. But it was six months after that that I hired Clint, my community manager. Yeah, he's your bread kicker. That's funny. Clint is everything probably, but my butt kicker."
00:19:59,"Oh, okay. Which is interesting. Yeah, it is very interesting. Because he's a military guy. No, he's pastor. Oh, pastor. Okay. Why did I think he was military? That's so funny. Well, because he does physical training. He's a trainer. Yes, that's it. He's. He's a treatment. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because obviously, I've met him through the Community manager program, and then he was up for Community Manager of the year when we met at GWA a couple years ago."
00:20:26,"So he got to come to the conference, which is awesome. Which was nice. It was really good. So, yeah. It's funny. Clint and I are a lot alike in some ways. It's really funny because we are what he. He does help push me when I need it, but he waits for me to ask. So he's a very. He's a gentle giant in a lot of ways, and he's a people person."
00:20:49,"I would say this all day, every day. The one thing I never thought that I would do, number one, is hire a male community manager, because I always thought I would find a female. Yeah. And. And if. If you can find someone that comes out of the church in some form or fashion, they have a heart for people. Yeah. So I will give credit to Clint, because Clint, he hunted me down."
00:21:12,"He submitted a resume in December. I wasn't looking to hire community manager. I knew something needed to change, but I was scared. Yeah. And December, he's like, I'm coming back from London with my wife from a mission trip. I've worked in a coworking space. This is what I want to do. Blah, blah, blah. January hits me again. Then it calls me. Then he. I mean, he was on me."
00:21:33,"Right. Because I responded to him. Nobody else around town responded to him. Nobody. They all regret it now. Right? They all regret it. They didn't know they were not responding to future Community Manager of the Year. Yeah. Well, and now he's my coo, so. And he's been with me going on six years now, so. Yeah. Which is, like, almost unheard of. Right. Amazon. So one of the things that I do a little differently here and is because I'm an entrepreneur with many side hustles myself."
00:22:05,"I know. That's why I thought you were linking. I was like, this lady's got a lot going on. I need to. I. I let him embrace what he loves as well. Right. And so he started as a camp gladiator trainer. Shortly after I hired him, Covid changed thing, changed things a little bit because he started doing virtual trainings. And so when we came back from COVID I was like, yeah, I'll let you leave early on this day and this day to go do virtual."
00:22:29,"And, you know, because of everything he learned working for me, because he didn't know anything about running a business. He knew people and that's what I needed. Because if I was going to step back as the owner. Yeah. And as the people lover, I needed somebody who could love on my people. Like, if you're coachable and trainable and teachable, I can teach you how to run a business."
00:22:48,"Yeah. And he was, he's humble, he's kind, he's a very unique individual. He is that unicorn, quite frankly. So fast forward, he now owns a gym also literally down the block from us. And so once in a while he runs out for lunch if he go do a class or something. And so we, we help each other kind of grow and be better at what. And as long when he's here, he's mine, he's my guy."
00:23:16,"Yeah. He's got my back. And there are so many parallels to those businesses, though. There are the community customer acquisition. You're changing, I mean from a, like membership levels. Membership levels, all those things. Churn retention. Yeah. And quite frankly, each one of his businesses feeds business to us and we feed business to him. Yeah. So it's a very good relationship. I understand. I don't have them in the evenings anymore."
00:23:41,"So if we're doing late night events or evening events, I don't necessarily, necessarily have him. But I'm willing to sacrifice that because of how incredible as a community manager he is. I mean, you have no idea like, you know, having a good community manager. But this guy is so special. When I have members, I have a member who lives in New York and he comes here every couple of months and I went to breakfast with him and he told me, he says, you know, Clint and I sit and talk on the phone all the time and he prays with me about my."
00:24:08,"And I, I came back to Clint and I took him in a room and I took his hands and I'm getting weepy now. And I, he said, you know, I know there's so much more that you do for our community that I don't ever know about, but I just want to tell you how incredibly grateful I am. You know, I am so, so grateful. And that's a, you know, a community manager and staying as long as he stayed."
00:24:30,"And I've slow rolled, you know, and increased his pay and trying to get him to where he's got a, you know, a living wage for his family now he's a kid, you know, his son's like 10 months old now and. Yeah, so. So back to my business partner. Yes, I know. I went off I adore Clint, and I have to give him those kudos anytime I can because I really, truly believe that he has been the biggest blessing in my life."
00:24:59,"He lives. He lives only a few blocks down the block from me. He grew up in my area of town, and we pray together and I can go to him and like, cry in the most frustrating day. And then he turns around and is like, you're my boss, babe. Like, you are my boss. And he respects me and honors me, and that's a very special thing to have."
00:25:20,"And I'm. I'm so blessed. Yeah. 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. 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."
00:26:03,"This business is really about making the right fundamental decisions that align with your individual personal and financial goals. 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."
00:26:41,"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@everythingcoworking.com"
00:27:12,"masterclass. So my business partner and I, I know you, and I'm going to answer your questions. You said we come up with the ensemble band name, right? The ensemble name, yeah. So when you have two people coming together, what do you have to do? You want to collaborate, right? And we kept trying to go around some things and we threw out a lot of names way back then."
00:27:34,"I couldn't. Can't even remember it, but her son was in band and he played trumpet or something like that, and he was in the marching band and we went to like a craft show. One day, and we were just looking for inspiration. And then there was this assemblage lady where she took all these things. It's actually a S, S E M. And she puts them together, like all these random pieces of things to make something."
00:27:56,"And it was called assemblage. And from there, I like, on ensemble came into my mind. And I was like, an ensemble is a group of musicians all playing different instruments that makes beautiful music. And then of course, you think of from the perspective of ensemble as a clothing kind of thing. Right. So it was. I said, that is such a perfect example of what she and I are."
00:28:23,"Right. Very different walks of life. A visionary, an integrator, you know, totally different. And how we've managed to get this bar. And so I loved it. She loved it. And that's kind of how we came up with our logo colors. Like, one was her favorite, one was mine, and then we kind of merged it. And it was a great collaboration. And of course, we love to play off of it because we have the band room, the gym."
00:28:47,"I love that. Totally wet. Our phone booth is called the Opus. The membership named that. They named it the Opus. And we used to have our membership names with all of the fun names too. But then it became too difficult. Like online, you need it so basic. You need full time art time, dedicated. I always say that I'm like, please leave the creative names off of your membership."
00:29:11,"But I love it for the meeting rooms. And your ensemble is such a beautiful name for coworking space. And because I took French, so I end up saying ensemble, whereas a lot of people. Ensemble. And I said ensemble. Yeah. It is interesting. It's like entrepreneur versus that sometimes too. Tomato, tomato. Yeah. I also took French, so maybe that's why I pick a ensemble. Yeah, I love that."
00:29:37,"I mean, the. The partner thing is really interesting. Was she on the lease or were you on the lease? She was on the lease. It took a lot. Yeah, we. Okay. So we had to have legal documents remove her name from the lease and remove her from the guarantor part of the lease. We had a little bit of financial stuff to work out. And then, of course, you know, redoing the LLC."
00:29:58,"I own 51%, so that gave me the right to kind of make these decisions as well, so. And did you have an operating agreement in place? No. With it. With our landlord? No. Between the two of you? Oh, yeah, yeah. We have full documents. Yeah. I was set up to go ahead and to make the. But it was. It wasn't easy in the beginning. It was Difficult. There was always that, that financial part of it because she put in a little bit of money and I was all the sweat equity."
00:30:26,"And so there was a, you know, there was a little bit of challenges. But luckily we have two very good friends who helped mediate to try to make sure that we remained friends. Yeah. And we felt like we were all coming out of this with something good. Yeah. Right. I mean, this is the thing with all of the documentation up front. It seems like a lot of work."
00:30:43,"You have to pay attorneys, but you have to do it because if you break up, you salvaged a friendship. I mean. Yeah, yeah. My, my attorney was my brother in law. So like there was no way he wasn't going to cover all of this. So that, yeah, I knew that I would be protected if I needed to. Yeah. I mean, that's really what operating agreements are for or for the breakup."
00:31:03,"Yep, they are. Right. It happens a lot. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been through a lot of it. Okay, so, so talk about, I mean, you could talk about along the way or just today it sounds like. So Clint is kind of running the day to day and he's your coo. So what's your role in the business and what else are you doing? Right. So I am the CEO and the visionary."
00:31:28,"So I kind of help drive the vision for the business and Clint needs that at times. And I say, because he is juggling this new family, new business, things like that. And we, we talk about this, we go on walkabouts is what I call em. We walk through the neighborhood and that's kind of when we can get out. And I free flow think and I can, we can talk better, you know, and I'm, I'm very conscious of where he is mentally in his capacity to think creatively outside of the box for me right now."
00:31:58,"And that's limited. And I'm, I'm, I'm okay with that because that is really what I'm great at. He's good at executing on the things that I come up with or pushing back and going, yeah, I don't really think that's going to work. And I'm like, okay, well thanks. I don't have to do the work. So great thinking. So I do a lot of visionary thinking about where are we going next, what is next, what can we layer in, what can we take out?"
00:32:20,"Obviously having a marketing background, I still oversee the marketing. I don't do the marketing. Although right now I'm somewhat doing the marketing because that's been a, I have Another employee. And that's been a shift. And I totally. You're. You probably know this because I've heard you talk about like that second employee that is like, are they the assistant community manager? Are they the marketing person? And finding that unicorn has been much, much harder."
00:32:46,"And so right now some of the marketing is falling back on me. But typically I oversee the vision for marketing and just helping to ensure that the voice, the brand voice and everything is carried through properly. And I love when I could be hands off of that because that is not where I want to be anymore. My, my posting on social media is bipolar is what I call it."
00:33:07,"And like, oh, I'm on it, I'm on it, I'm on it. And then, and then I'm not on anything. I'm like, I'm tired of this. This is not my thing. Yeah. So, yeah, it's always about like, what kind of programming can we do differently, what kind of events can we have? And then just overseeing financials and paying bills and you know, things I check on with him typically are, hey, Amazon was up high this month."
00:33:31,"What's going on? Or coffee bill. What's happening with that? Checking in with the cleaners, things like that. It's. It's very nice. I've moved out of here several times. I'm actually moving out again. Like out of the space. Out of the space completely. Yes, yes, it is. It's. It's actually my happy place. Yeah. Nobody. I need a co Working space away from my coworker. No. Which is. Yes. And you are in."
00:33:57,"You should do a trade with some. Well, you need to. Nobody's going to give you an office. You know. But that's the thing. You don't want to take an office because you want someone to pay for the office. Yeah. So I'm kind of. I'm in one of our micro offices right now that's also doubling as an. As a closet. So I'm feeling extremely like closed in and I don't."
00:34:17,"And it starts to get to me after a while. Yeah. So I'm actually going to move home. I usually have moved and rented an office or rented. I did a DD somewhere. I can't go where in other co Working spaces because I know everybody. Everybody in town. Like in town. Literally you can. And, and that's the pro. Like that's the thing. So I have two different suites. So we expanded two years ago."
00:34:39,"Okay. And the suites are separated by a suite in between us. We're a ground floor, like front facing, street level. Right. But this suite came available. We were at max capacity. Well, it's been. We were at max capacity three years ago after Covid. Wow. Everything like the first year after was like, okay. And then it just exploded. And so my lease was coming up, my first lease. And I was like, well, we may need to move."
00:35:04,"And then my neighbor was moving out. The last thing I wanted to do was to move, quite frankly, because this is not a business model that's easily moved. And we have our own private gated parking. And. And being where we are, that's huge because now all of them parking's turned to paid. And we're on this quaint little block. We have restaurants. There's three restaurants right outside the door you can walk to and eat a wine bar across the street."
00:35:28,"So I sat and thought hard on talk to a friend. And we took over another 1500 square feet, which is nine offices. And they're bigger. So now we have room for people to grow. Yeah. And they just walk through the front, like on. Out front underneath the overhang. And they go to the. The. The conference rooms are on the other side. We have a little mini kitchen here."
00:35:48,"But it's just time for me. So anytime I go over there to talk to Clint or Amber, everybody's like, oh, you know, and I love. I can't. I'm. I'm people person. I feel bad when I'm like, no, I don't want to talk. Right. I mean, get stuff done mode. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. No, I do try to. Ironic problem ever. It is. It is like. Yeah. And so that's again, why Clint is so great at what he does."
00:36:18,"Because he can love on them and still get back and doing his job and take. So he mo. Does he. He sits at the front desk? No. No. Okay. We have. He has his own desk, kind of sits in the back near open coworking. He can see the front door. We have front desk people who work for us. We have. I have a cowork share program that I put into Place in November 2016."
00:36:40,"And so we have entrepreneurs work the front desk for one day a week in exchange for their full time coworking membership. Okay. And so their basic jobs is greeting guests. We have a very robust conference room usage from outside people. Okay. Greeting guests even for. We have a lot of attorneys. So they do a lot of signings. Letting our members know when someone's here. Cleaning up the conference rooms when people leave."
00:37:06,"Yeah. Making coffee. They all work the. And the interruption work. Yeah. Yeah. Like run the business. Yes. Amazing. The basics is. And they're wonderful. I mean, one lady, Charlie, she's been with us since June of 2016. It's really a six month stint. You don't have to do any more than that. And a lot of them, some of them are a little bit older and they, they're doing it because they love to be in the community."
00:37:32,"They get one hour extra, one hour of coaching from me every single month. So they get business coaching, which they love, which I have a meeting with one right after this. And. And it helps us out. Like sometimes you just need that warm body. Like I need him to smile 100%. But the problem is the warm body is then that warm body can't get anything else done. It's so challenging."
00:37:54,"That's why this has worked really well. We struggled coming out of COVID with it because we did have a couple of older ladies who were not comfortable coming back. Coming back. But we're now at capacity and we get a lot of young ones too. Like young people. And then the baby entrepreneurs. Yeah. My goal is like to grow out of it. We want you down in six months because you've met so many people here."
00:38:16,"I love that mindset. Right. It's like a trade. You get the exposure, you get. Right, right. Business acumen out of it. But yeah. Yeah. So that, that tremendously helps relieve stress for him. And when they've been with us long enough, like we have a few of them we know we can go off site to and they've got it covered on it. Yeah. They can't get in and do run credit cards and things like that."
00:38:40,"But we, you know, we work our way around it and it just helps to know that they're there, that, you know, if the ceiling crashes in, that they will call us, you know, or the tour jammed or you know, the thing that silly things that people need, need someone for. Correct. Do they give tours or does Clint do those? Some of them give tours, some of them don't."
00:39:01,"So, you know, if you put a job description for this job, I would say that none of them actually fit all of the requirements. Sure. So we know what each one's strong suit is and we kind of try to play to that. So we know if this one doesn't do, which, you know, we've got one woman, she just doesn't do very good tours and she knows it, but that's okay."
00:39:22,"So we make sure that Amber or Clint or myself jump in on our tour if I'm. If I'm over there. But Kevin was there and Kevin is A technology guru and he would go in and fix all these things for us in our Google sheets. And I was like, have at it, you know. Yeah, please do that. I've had a couple of them become work for me part time even doing stuff because you've sort of uncovered like their superpower and."
00:39:47,"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so it helps when they can do the tours. But you know, really this is. That's Clint's like secret sauce is. Yeah. People just love this guy. He is. He's just a perfect combo of strong and humble and kind and sweet all at the same time. Yeah. 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."
00:40:25,"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."
00:40:57,"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."
00:41:31,"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."
00:42:03,"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 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."
00:42:32,"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 we have tour training."
00:43:07,"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 list."
00:43:33,"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. 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 and we also host a best practice sharing call which is one of the fan favorites of the group and the Slack group."
00:44:10,"So if you have any questions at all about the program, don't hesitate to reach out. You can learn more and register@everyTHING coworking.com communitymanager now back to our episode. Well, I can tell from your Google reviews, you know, you really can get a sense and not, I do think not every space is going to be an ensemble because you and Clint are like special sauce. The heart that you have for people and how engaged you are."
00:44:42,"And that's not going to be everybody's business model, but that's right. You can tell from the Google reviews like it's not about how clean the space is or, you know, how professional it's the well, I copied one out Ensemble is such a great place. Tamara and the team truly care about the community and are a joy to be around. They're constantly looking for ways to help others and provide value to so many small businesses."
00:45:08,"I highly recommend ensemble coworking to anyone looking for a great community and a place to grow your small business. Like, I mean that's what it's all about for you. That's. Yeah, yeah, it really is. It truly is because, you know, there's a lot of spaces. They focus on the real estate and that. That's their business model. And that is fantastic. And for us, yeah, I'm in this to make money."
00:45:33,"I mean, I'm not in this to. To lose money. And, you know, we're not. We're doing well. But at the core, and our mission is to grow businesses and invest in people through connections, collaboration, and community. And that community starts on the inside and it goes out into the greater Fort Worth area because I'm heavily involved in a lot of ecosystem building stuff for entrepreneurs. Okay. And because as an entrepreneur who I understand what they're going through."
00:45:59,"Right. And now the funny thing is, is that we also have a very robust community of nonprofits that don't need us like, that are competent and they're here. We've got a couple of larger organizations that we're. Their Fort Worth office from Dallas, architectural firms, things like that. And those are phenomenal because, you know, they're reliable, they pay their rent and they're not going anywhere. Right? Yeah. And now the nonprofits, even, we support them during Giving Tuesday, like today, during."
00:46:27,"In September, when there's another giving day. Like, we make sure we promote the people that are in our space. And that's that whole networking idea. Right. Like, how do I connect you to somebody either that you need to know to help you grow your business, or maybe a client or maybe a mentor or maybe just someone I think you'll really like. Like, we love that part of it."
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