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28. Brand, Positioning, and Performance Marketing at Scale with Flip Howard
Lucid Private Offices CEO Flip Howard has been in the flexible office business since 2001. In that time, he has been through a recession, a pandemic, and two full rebrands, and has come out the other side running one of the most premium brands in the industry.
Today, he has 29 locations open with (at least) two more on the way, and Flip has done the branding, positioning, and marketing math.
In Episode 28, Flip dives into the evolution of his business, where his priorities are, and what he sees for the future.
We discuss how:
- Lucid started in 2001 as Meridian Business Centers, a Regis copycat that competed mostly on price, before two rebrands carried it through Work Suites and upmarket into the modern, premium Lucid Private Offices brand it is today
- Flip built Lucid in the gap between Regis and WeWork on purpose, and his test for that in-between position is whether you land on the best of both or the worst of both, because nobody wants to buy a convertible minivan
- Lucid's motto is "work is good, where you do it matters," and Flip makes the case with a simple comparison: people happily pay thousands to drink a cold beer by a pool in Fiji and would not pay thirty bucks to drink the same beer at a roadside motel, because the surroundings are the product
- He treats marketing as pure ROI and calls the phrase "marketing budget" a stupid sentence, since you would never stop buying customers who cost two dollars and bring in a hundred
- He recently cut his Google ad spend roughly in half with almost no drop in lead flow, and he is reinvesting the savings into SEO, AI visibility, referrals, and broker outreach to wean the business off its dependence on Google
- After a year and a half of pouring money into sales training that barely moved his close rate, Flip realized the bigger lever was getting more people in the door, since lifting the conversion rate had done so little
- His new locations run 25,000 square feet and up by design, because small spaces fill faster, but large ones are where the profit lives, and he thinks the industry confuses occupancy with profitability
- He breaks every coworking location into four legs of a stool, real estate, build-out, sales and marketing, and customer service, and the first two are the ones you can never fix once you have signed the lease
If you want to hear from one of the coworking industry's pioneers, this one's for you.
Want to connect with Flip Howard? Find him on LinkedIn and check out Lucid Private Offices.
By the way, you can also:
- Check us out on YouTube
- Download all free tools, templates, and resources from 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast 🛠️
About 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast
Hosted by Kevin Whelan of Everspaces and Taylor Mason of Talemaker, 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast dives deep into marketing tips, tools, insights, and strategies you can actually use to grow your coworking business.
🔔 Hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.
About Lucid Private Offices
Lucid Private Offices provides flexible workspace for teams and individuals, along with meeting rooms and virtual offices. They operate locations across Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Nashville.
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By Kevin Whelan & Taylor MasonLucid Private Offices CEO Flip Howard has been in the flexible office business since 2001. In that time, he has been through a recession, a pandemic, and two full rebrands, and has come out the other side running one of the most premium brands in the industry.
Today, he has 29 locations open with (at least) two more on the way, and Flip has done the branding, positioning, and marketing math.
In Episode 28, Flip dives into the evolution of his business, where his priorities are, and what he sees for the future.
We discuss how:
- Lucid started in 2001 as Meridian Business Centers, a Regis copycat that competed mostly on price, before two rebrands carried it through Work Suites and upmarket into the modern, premium Lucid Private Offices brand it is today
- Flip built Lucid in the gap between Regis and WeWork on purpose, and his test for that in-between position is whether you land on the best of both or the worst of both, because nobody wants to buy a convertible minivan
- Lucid's motto is "work is good, where you do it matters," and Flip makes the case with a simple comparison: people happily pay thousands to drink a cold beer by a pool in Fiji and would not pay thirty bucks to drink the same beer at a roadside motel, because the surroundings are the product
- He treats marketing as pure ROI and calls the phrase "marketing budget" a stupid sentence, since you would never stop buying customers who cost two dollars and bring in a hundred
- He recently cut his Google ad spend roughly in half with almost no drop in lead flow, and he is reinvesting the savings into SEO, AI visibility, referrals, and broker outreach to wean the business off its dependence on Google
- After a year and a half of pouring money into sales training that barely moved his close rate, Flip realized the bigger lever was getting more people in the door, since lifting the conversion rate had done so little
- His new locations run 25,000 square feet and up by design, because small spaces fill faster, but large ones are where the profit lives, and he thinks the industry confuses occupancy with profitability
- He breaks every coworking location into four legs of a stool, real estate, build-out, sales and marketing, and customer service, and the first two are the ones you can never fix once you have signed the lease
If you want to hear from one of the coworking industry's pioneers, this one's for you.
Want to connect with Flip Howard? Find him on LinkedIn and check out Lucid Private Offices.
By the way, you can also:
- Check us out on YouTube
- Download all free tools, templates, and resources from 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast 🛠️
About 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast
Hosted by Kevin Whelan of Everspaces and Taylor Mason of Talemaker, 2 Marketers and a Coworking Podcast dives deep into marketing tips, tools, insights, and strategies you can actually use to grow your coworking business.
🔔 Hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.
About Lucid Private Offices
Lucid Private Offices provides flexible workspace for teams and individuals, along with meeting rooms and virtual offices. They operate locations across Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Nashville.