Flex That Worx

If your energy bill doubled tomorrow, would your space still make money, and would you actually know why? It is the question Graham and Anne-Marie sit with this week on Flex That Worx, with single space coworking operators front of mind, because you are the one carrying this weight, in a building full of people you know by name and that takes its own kind of strength.

This is a practical chat about putting your experience to work, getting clear on what each part of your space actually costs to run, having the kind of conversation worth having with members who have been with you a long time and looking at the revenue lines that grow alongside your daily memberships. 

There is plenty here on staying useful to your local community when things get unpredictable and on holding tightly to the warmth of your space when the natural pull is to shrink back. You have weathered cost pressure before, the instincts are still in you and this episode is here to help you trust them.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Visibility on your cost base, room by room, is the foundation for every other decision you make
• Long-standing member pricing deserves a fresh, kind conversation, because the gap between what early members pay and what it costs to host them keeps widening
• Revenue lines like registered addresses, day passes, meeting room hires and hybrid bundles can ease the pressure without changing the feel of your space
• Being known to your local council, chamber and business community puts your space front of mind when disruption hits
• The warmth and welcome of your space is what members are paying for, so it deserves protecting when the pressure is on

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

If you're running a coworking space on your own, sales is the work that probably gets pushed to the side when the day gets full. There's always something else going on like a tour to give, a question to answer, a list of small things waiting on you before lunch. If this sounds like your current reality, this week's Flex Rewind is for you. 

Anne-Marie and Graham return to one of the conversations operators keep telling us they need to hear, all about how to build a sales process when you're running things on your own and don't have hours to spare on it.

It's a practical look at why being a single space operator is itself a reason for a small process to exist. You'll hear about a simple pipeline you could set up over a coffee, the one question worth asking every person who comes through your door and the kind of light-touch monthly check-in that helps you see where your time is best spent. Nothing complicated. Just enough to keep the leads that come in from slipping away without you noticing.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• A simple sales process is critical so that it runs every day and fits around your work instead of fighting it.
• Picturing the person who'd take the desk is often more useful than the next round of marketing.
• Three stages is enough. New enquiry, in conversation, closed.
• One question, every time. Ask each enquiry where they found you and write it down.
• Two numbers, once a month. Tours carried out and new invoices sent gives you your conversion picture.
• Start small this week: A coffee, a notebook and three columns is all you need to begin.

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

Pricing your space sits in a category of its own.

The numbers come together quickly enough. The harder part is sitting with what a change might mean for the members who've stayed with you, who've shaped the community in your space and who you'd rather not lose. That weight is real and it's part of what makes you the kind of operator your members are happy to keep coming back to.

In this Flex Rewind, Graham and Anne-Marie come back to the topic of pricing. They cover why standardised pricing protects the trust at the heart of your community, where private rates genuinely belong for at-scale clients, why it's okay to charge fairly for what your space provides and how clear bundles can take the friction out of the day-to-day for both you and your members.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Standardised, public pricing protects the trust your members place in you and the conversations they have with each other 
• Private rates make sense for clients taking a meaningful slice of your desks
• Passing rising costs through with care is part of looking after the business that holds your community
• Some members stepping back when rates shift is part of running a healthy business, not a sign you've fallen short on the care you've shown
• Clear bundles ring-fence fair usage and avoid the awkward meeting room conversation before it lands
• Flexibility is a kindness, and letting members pick what fits how they actually work is part of why they stay

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

Scaling a coworking space is a milestone worth pausing over. If you are looking at opening a second location or you already have a handful of spaces running, you have built something that works well enough to grow from. Scaling also tends to come with feelings that rarely get talked about out loud, like the tiredness, the overworked team and the Sunday evening reports that take longer than they should.

In this Flex Rewind, Anne-Marie and Graham discuss what scaling actually looks like from the operator's seat. They talk through why taking stock of what you already have is part of growing well, how to hold space for the fact that every location inside your brand will have its own personality and what to look for in the systems underneath your business so they carry your team well as you grow.

Wherever you are on your scaling journey, this one was made for you.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Scaling is the reward for a lot of quieter work that came before and it is worth celebrating before adding more
• Looking honestly at the spaces you already run is often where the next stretch of good growth starts
• Every location inside your brand will have its own rhythm and that is part of what keeps a growing brand feeling alive
• The process and tech underneath your business is what holds the brand together as each site takes on its own personality
• The tools you choose at this stage need to support your team, your managers and the people you are reporting to

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

When you're deep in the day-to-day of running a space, brand can feel like something that belongs to other people. The operators with bigger budgets or the ones who seem to just get it naturally. In this Flex Rewind from our conversation with Emilie Lashmar, Creative Director at TOGETHER and Director of GCUC UK, we explore why brand has very little to do with logos or colour palettes and everything to do with the decisions you're already making every day.

How you welcome people, how you respond when things go wrong, how you treat a member on their way out. That's your brand in action and it's already stronger than you might think.

Emilie shares why replicating another operator's approach tends to fall flat and what actually works when you're trying to build something that feels true to you and your space. Whether you're in your first year or well established, the encouraging message here is that branding is a skill you can grow into. You don't need to have it all figured out on day one, you just need to begin somewhere honest.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Your brand is already being shaped by how you operate every day. The small, human moments matter far more than visual identity.
• Replicating what's worked for another space can leave your brand feeling disconnected from who you are, your team and your community.
• Writing down why you do this work, honestly and in your own words, is a practical first step towards articulating your brand.
• Branding is a learnable skill. You don't need a creative background to build something people genuinely connect with.
• Taking people on the journey with you as things evolve builds deeper loyalty than a perfectly polished front ever could.

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

How much time do you spend reaching out to the businesses in your area? Not the freelancers or the solo workers who already know what coworking is, but the employers with remote teams who have probably never set foot in a space like yours and the companies thinking about releasing their office lease, but wanting to still give their team a place to work from.

It is a detail that a lot of operators might have not considered, but as the profile of coworking members continues to evolve, it is becoming one of the more important questions in the room.

In this Flex Rewind, Graham and Anne-Marie dig into the growing opportunity for operators to build relationships directly with employers who have remote or hybrid teams. The conversation covers the hidden costs companies face when equipping people to work from home, the tax efficiency of a business covering a coworking desk versus an employee funding one themselves, what a membership base built around employer relationships actually looks like in practice and why a workspace shouldn’t be viewed as a perk but as a necessity where people genuinely show up and do meaningful work.

Short, focused and full of ideas that operators can act on. If your membership has been built entirely around individuals finding you, this one is worth your time.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Understanding who pays for the desk changes how you think about retention and long-term revenue
• Setting up home workers costs employers more than they often realise and a coworking desk simplifies that entirely
• It is more tax efficient for a company to pay for a desk than for an employee to cover it from their own salary
• Employer relationships bring a steadiness to your membership that individual sign-ups alone cannot
• Going out and starting conversations with local businesses could add real value to your space

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

If someone walked into your space for the first time, would they know straight away what kind of place it is or would they need a while to figure it out?

Hotels and hostels both sell beds, nobody ever confuses the two. Coworking and flexible workspaces also both sell desks but plenty of operators are trying to be both at once and that is where it starts to get complicated.

In this episode, Anne-Marie and Graham work through an analogy that sounds simple on the surface but opens up a lot once you really get into it. The hostel experience is social, high energy, community driven and built around people who want to be part of something while they are there. The hotel experience is private, service led, predictable and built around people who want things to just work without the noise.

Both are profitable, both are clear on who they are for, neither is sitting in the middle trying to be all things to all people.

So where do coworking and flexible workspaces sit in all of this and what happens when an operator is not entirely sure of the answer?

The conversation covers what your audience psychology actually tells you, why your team needs to be as clear on your identity as you are, how you can borrow smart ideas from both ends of the spectrum without losing focus and why getting stuck in the middle is the one place you really do not want to be.

This one is worth a proper listen, a conversation that has you thinking about your own space long after the episode is over.

Key takeaways for coworking & flexible workspace operators:

• Clarity on what your space is attracts the right members faster, retains them longer and makes conversion easier
• Your team, your offer and your environment all need to reflect the same identity
• Listening to why people actually come to your space is where the real insight lives
• You can borrow elements from both ends of the spectrum but your members will feel it if you have not made a choice
• Getting stuck in the middle is the one position that tends to work out for nobody

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe where-ever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

If someone asked you what your lead-to-tour conversion looks like right now, would you have an answer?

In this episode of Flex That Worx, Anne-Marie and Graham unpack something that comes up again and again with operators. It can feel like an occupancy issue, but when you take a closer look, it’s actually about what’s happening behind the scenes.

Community plays a huge role in any space, it keeps people engaged and connected. When it comes to growth, there needs to be a bit more structure around how enquiries are handled, how conversations progress, and how decisions are tracked.

This conversation looks at where things can start to slip. Follow-ups that take longer than intended, pipelines that exist in people’s heads rather than anywhere visible and tours that don’t always translate into members.

We also spend time chatting about occupancy and why it doesn’t always reflect what’s going on in the business.

If you’ve ever had the sense that things should be converting better than they are, this will be the episode you need to hear this week.

Key takeaways for coworking operators:

• Community strengthens retention but growth needs structure behind it
• Response time shapes how your space is experienced from the first interaction
• A simple, visible pipeline can bring clarity very quickly
• Conversion becomes easier to understand when it’s actually tracked
• Occupancy doesn’t always reflect how sustainable the business is

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe where-ever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

Events have always been part of coworking. Breakfasts, meetups, workshops, the occasional Friday social. But anyone running a workspace knows the real question isn’t whether events matter.

It’s whether they’re actually driving value for your members.

In this episode of Flex That Worx, we sit down with Emilie Lashmar, Creative Director at TOGETHER and Director of GCUC UK, to unpack what events can really do for a coworking brand when they’re designed with intention.

What we explore in this episode

• How events can become the energy source inside coworking spaces
• How community activity can influence a town's/city’s wider ecosystem
• The challenge of measuring the real impact of events
• Why brand in coworking is much more than visuals
• The evolving relationship between independent operators and larger flex brands
• How operators can look after themselves while building community

Emilie’s coworking journey started in Brighton at PLATF9RM, where community and events became the heartbeat of the space. Not in a forced way, but through the simple idea that bringing the right people together often leads to opportunity. Businesses grow. Collaborations happen. The town / city ecosystem starts to feel a little stronger.

From those early days running events inside a coworking space to shaping major industry gatherings like GCUC, Emilie has seen how experiences shape brand in ways other types of marketing alone never can.

The conversation moves through a lot of ground familiar to workspace operators. Event fatigue, burnout, the pressure to keep calendars full, the tricky balance between community energy and running a sustainable business.

There’s also a deeper discussion about brand itself. Not the visual identity side, but the behaviours that shape how a workspace is experienced every day.

Because in coworking, brand is rarely something you can point at, it’s something people feel.

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe where-ever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with Emilie on LinkedIn, visit her website and learn more about Together & GCUC UK.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!

When someone joins your space, in the busyness of signing them up do you and your team stop to consider who is actually paying for the desk?

In this episode of Flex That Worx, we explore a shift that coworking operators are noticing. As coworking becomes more mainstream, more employees of established businesses are choosing to work from coworking spaces and in many cases they are covering the cost themselves.

We chat through what this model means for a coworking space, for revenue stability, for retention and for how you define your ideal customer. If the employer is funding the desk, the relationship changes. If the employee is funding it, the risk profile looks different.

We also look at the perception gap that still exists. Many nine to five workers assume coworking is not for them. That it is built for freelancers or creatives. Yet in reality, most spaces today are more than capable of supporting structured, professional work environments. 

For operators, this raises practical questions. How easy is it for a business owner to secure a desk for a team member? How visible are you to local companies? And if one company starts to grow within your space, how do you manage that sustainably?

Key Takeaways for Coworking and Flexible Workspace Operators

• Consider who is actually funding the desks in your space and what that means for retention
• Employer funded memberships can bring greater stability than relying solely on individual payers
• Many nine to five professionals still do not see coworking as relevant to them
• Make it straightforward for business owners to understand pricing and secure desks
• Think ahead about how much of your space you want allocated to one organisation
• Stay active within your local business community so awareness grows naturally

If you are thinking about consistency of sales and strengthening your foundations for the year ahead, this conversation will give you plenty to reflect on.

Thanks for tuning in to Flex That Worx!

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow or subscribe where-ever you get your podcasts so you don't miss our next episode.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Graham
• Anne-Marie

Watch the full episode on our YouTube, explore free tools and resources over at Baseworx.co.

This is Flex That Worx powered by Baseworx, scaling your workspace, made simpler and less stressful!