A recent trip to the groomer got me thinking about balancing tech-enabled coworking purchases and onboarding with on-site customer service and hospitality.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Live Masterclass: on August 15th: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

To Staff or Not to Staff. That is the question we explore in this episode.

Here’s what we dive into:

Staffed vs. Unstaffed Spaces: Why might an operator choose to run a space without staff? What are the trade-offs?

Real-Life Experiences: Hear about operators that successfully operate unstaffed spades.

Coffee Culture: Learn creative ways to manage coffee service in unstaffed coworking environments—because let’s face it, coffee is the lifeblood of productivity!

Hybrid Models: Explore how some coworking spaces are blending staffed and unstaffed models to maximize flexibility and efficiency for their members.

Decision-Making Tips: Get practical advice on choosing the right model for your coworking space based on target audience, location, budget, and long-term goals.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

AltSpace

Bishop Coworking

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

You love a little extra revenue...flex memberships are hard to sell, so you're happy to have a little more buzz in the space with the day passers...but day passers can be high maintenance, it can be challenging to make sure they have a great experience, and sometimes it feels like they are more work than they're worth.

Day passes create the ultimate flexibility for the commitment-phobic user. So if you offer them at an attractive price, you might get repeat day pass users who never upgrade to a recurring membership, helping you to sleep a little easier at night.

Who does not offer them?

Lucid Private Offices

Gather

Here are a few tips to encourage day passers to upgrade to recurring memberships:

• Raise the price of your day pass. If the daily rate of your lowest recurring membership is not significantly less than your day pass, you won't get your day pass users to upgrade. There's both a monetary cost and a mental cost to committing to a recurring fee. You have to make it attractive enough to overcome that resistance.

• Create a more compelling "fence" between your day pass and a recurring membership. If you don't want to encourage repeat day pass purchases, don't give them the benefits of membership.

• Run periodic promotions to create urgency and scarcity. Humans generally operate on inertia. You have to give them a really compelling reason to change their behavior. Encourage the upgrade by offering new-members-only promotions with a compelling discount on a recurring membership for a short period. You could put a minimum membership commitment on the promo such as 3 months, to avoid having day passers upgrade for one month only.

And if the admin cost of offering day passes is just too high, don't do it.

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

What gets focus gets better.

If you want to improve your coworking business, define your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), track them, pull levers to make them better, and grow your coworking business.

In this episode, I walk through 3 of my 5 favorite KPIs for coworking businesses.

If you missed the first two KPIs, scroll back to episode #351.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Feasibility study for landlords - evaluate a coworking business or partnership with clarity and confidence with industry-benchmarked coworking financial metrics and a pro forma customized to your market and your project.

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

What gets focus gets better.

If you want to improve your coworking business, define your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), track them, pull levers to make them better, and grow your coworking business.

In this episode, I walk through 2 of my 5 favorite KPIs for coworking businesses.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Feasibility study for landlords - evaluate a coworking business or partnership with clarity and confidence with industry-benchmarked coworking financial metrics and a pro forma customized to your market and your project.

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

Maryann Baldwin opened a 2400 square foot coworking space in Lansing Iowa, population 1,000. This is her third year in business and this year she will turn a profit.

She owns the building and doesn’t staff full time.

Her “Whys” in no particular order include: economic development, connecting like-minded people, coaching new business owners, helping the local community keep their minds healthy through lifelong learning, and providing Internet and a great place to work for visitors.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Maryann's LinkedIn profile

The Works website

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

Sam Pickering is the head of the sustainability practice at Incendium Consulting which is part of the Instant Group.

Sam shares:

• What their Sustainability Index tracks and how it helps operators make better decisions about their environmental impact and changes they can make to improve their score.

• Incendium’s partnership with the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) to create a simplified/approachable coworking version of the Well Certification.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Sam's LinkedIn profile

Incendium Consulting website

The Instant Group website

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube

Felicia founded HAYVN to support local women in business and make an impact in the community. Being a B Corp Certified business is an external signal of the values she leads at HAYVN from recruiting practices to vendor selection, to the programming she hosts to drive local economic development.

She and her B-Corp Certification consultant, Kerrie McDevitt, share what it means to be B-Corp certified, why a business might want to become certified, how much time it takes, and what it costs.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Felicia's LinkedIn profile

Hayvn website

Connect with Kerrie at Impact Growth Partners: kerrie@impactgrowthpartners.com

Everything Coworking Featured Resources:

Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space

Coworking Startup School

Community Manager University

Follow Us on YouTube