Everything Coworking

Mark Gilbreath is the CEO of liquidspace, a real-time booking platform for offices and meeting rooms by the hour, month or longer.

On Wednesday, August 18th, GSA, the federal agency responsible for managing the world’s largest workplace, a 700M square feet of real estate portfolio serving over two million employees, announced that they have awarded LiquidSpace a contract to provide Flexible Coworking Services (FCS) to government employees.

So, what’s the backstory?

18 months ago, in January 2020 the GSA issued an RFP as a part of their Total Workplace Program stating that "Working beyond the confines of a traditional office had become common" and that they sought to "equip government employees with the tools and the spaces to work from anywhere". With the announcement of the GSA’s awards, it is now evident that the government is poised to become one of the world’s largest consumers of coworking.

Others included in the contract award:

• WeWork
• Expansive
• The Yard
• Deskpass

Mark and I talk about:

1. Why the GSA has decided to offer flexibility to this workforce and what it says about the broader employee choice trends.
2. The GSA’s 50/50 approach to awarding every other “task order” going to small businesses (with less than $30M in revenue). What does this mean for boutique operators?
3. How might the 50/50 approach might impact supply over time?
4. Will this award encourage landlords to add flex offerings to the Liquidspace platform?
5. How will the GSA’s move serve as a signal to other enterprise businesses still trying to figure out their approach?
6. How does an operator get added to the platform so that they can be considered for GSA business?

This is a discussion you don't want to miss, be sure to listen to the full episode.

Link to show notes here!

Creating a marketing list for your coworking business opens up opportunities to use email marketing as a tool. On this episode, we talk about three things you can do with a “marketing” email list:

Sales Funnel tool: To nurture those that aren’t “search and join” members.

Direct Sales: To announce office openings, run BOGOS, sell event tickets

Indirect Sales: Affiliate revenue, Membership sales that aren’t attached to your physical space

Listen to the full episode for details on how to use your marketing list for these opportunities, what email service providers to use, and how to grow your email list.

Link to show notes here!

This week we're shifting from working on the "how" to working on the mindset challenges that often prevent us from making progress and living our best lives.

I am highly trained in the “how” department. So much so that my analytical rigor as an MBA grad from the top business school in the country might have squashed some of my intuitive side. I got to a point in my post-MBA career when I was really stuck and wasn't able to move on to the thing I could sense deep down was next for me.

Fortunately, I found Rita Hyland. Her website describes her coaching practice as "a place where leaders come to reclaim their purpose, clarify their vision, and reconnect with their true voice."

She did exactly that for me. Not just once, but twice :-) The first time I worked with her was the process that birthed Enerspace, my own coworking space. It was a life-changing process that gave me the awareness and the tools to work through mindset issues as they come up. And as entrepreneurs, we are all managing mindset issues on a daily basis.

Rita is an entrepreneur, coach, speaker, wife, and mother of three active children. In this episode, she talks with us about how to recognize common mindset barriers that keep us from pursuing our best lives.

Link to show notes here!

For some of you, the idea of being your own landlord is terrifying. For others, it's a compelling way to create operating income and build long-term wealth at the same time.

Jerry Alexander has been running this combo successfully since 2004. He is a commercial real estate investor running seven flex office/coworking locations out of buildings he owns.

He shares a bit about his flex operations, but more importantly, the value of investing in commercial property. Listen to our full conversation here.

Link to show notes here!

Potential members that tour looking for office space understand that "product" and they usually "need" it and value it enough to pay for it. Often they require privacy, a space to meet with clients, or make frequent ongoing phone calls.    Outside of major markets, you likely tour fewer potential members that come in looking for a flex desk or dedicated desk. These require more education and more of an "emotional" sell. Your sales funnel for offices is pretty simple. Google search --> tour --> close.     Your sales funnel for flex desks and dedicated desks might look more like this:   - Learns about coworking from a friend after complaining about not being productive at home. - Searches "coworking near me" and starts following a couple of local spaces on Instagram. - Checks out membership options and considers budgeting $300/month for workspace. - Maybe signs up for a couple of local spaces' newsletters. - Reads member interviews to understand who works in a coworking space... - Sees an offer for a day pass...schedules a tour. - Has a great experience testing out the space. - Goes home and keeps thinking about whether or not to budget $300 to be more productive...can they get an ROI on that? - Reads another newsletter and gets a little FOMO over Waffle Wednesday....   You get my point. It's a different sell.
In this episode I share one marketing tactic you can use to start educating and attracting more coworking/flex desk users.   Link to show notes here!

Customer Lifetime Value is a key metric for coworking space operators.

CLTV is important because it can help you make decisions about:

• Product mix
• Pricing
• Services offered
• Profit margin

In this episode, we cover three decisions you can make with CLTV data - how to measure it, what drives it, and how to increase it.

Link to show notes here!

Tracy Wilson is an OG of shared workspace. She is a partner at Pacific workplaces (18+ locations in California) and CloudVO. She is also now co-founder and COO at SUPER, which is on a mission to reduce single use plastic in businesses.

Coworking is part of the circular economy. It is inherently environmentally friendly. If you think your members would resonate with a higher level of service that also saves $ and reduces environmental waste, this episode is for you.

Link to show notes here!

Ted Laatz, COO of Success Magazine, gives us a preview of the new SUCCESS Space concept.

The suburban-focused locations will show up primarily in strip malls with each access and parking. The front of the space will be a publicly accessible cafe with coffee in the morning and wine/beer and snacks in the afternoon/evening.

The workspace will be uber-flexible with access billed starting at by the minute. 

The space will have a concierge and will also offer a SUCCESS-certified coach to support members in groups and 1:1.

Listen to our conversation to get more details!

Link to show notes here!

Marc Blum redeveloped his 80,000 square foot building for commercial office use. He built out all eight floors for Spaces, an IWG brand of coworking. Spaces filed for bankruptcy less than 6 months after moving into the space (during COVID-19).

Marc had a dilemma on his hands.

Should he/could he find another tenant? Should he run the flex office model himself? Should he find a partner?

Enter Adam Showalter and the rest is history. They share the story of how they converted the Spaces buildout to their own flexible office offering, gave the building a brand and became a leader in the evolution of the commercial office world.

Link to show notes here

Coworking space owners wear a lot of hats. "Content Marketer" is one of those hats that often times doesn't get worn as much as it should.

Creating relevant, consistent content can be challenging for owners and Community Managers.

Taylor Mason shares his perspective on where to start, where to focus and what to measure to see the ROI of content marketing.

Link to show notes here!