Boost coworking member leads with this wishlist of ideas
The 9 to 5 is dead. Long live the 8-11, 12-4, 5-10!
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, the author Alexandra Samuel shares her experience as a remote worker. It’s an experience shared by a vast majority of knowledge workers around the world since the pandemic, and Samuel wants that to be the norm, and not the exception.
Samuel should know. She’s the co-author of the book, “Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work…Wherever You Are.” She’s also a tech speaker and data journalist who has worked remotely for most of her 25-year career. The co-founder of pioneering social media agency Social Signal, Samuel creates digital content and workshops for companies like Twitter, Discovery and Sprinklr.
As a member of the new hybrid, remote workforce, Samuel doesn’t operate along the traditional 9-5 life. Why do the services and businesses she needs in her daily life?
“As a longtime remote worker, I was used to living my life on everybody else’s schedule. But now that my neighborhood is full of fellow work-from-home types, it’s time for local retailers to start thinking about hybrid workers’ needs, too.”
The hybrid customer, she writes, is in need of a different relationship to retail. But then she goes on to list a series of services and experiences she’s hoping for, nearly all of which can be delivered by coworking spaces who partner strategically with local retailers.
The article reads like a wish list from your ideal member and a roadmap to get more coworking member leads: these ideas are what she wants, why she wants it, and when she wants it. The best way to deliver the service your prospective members want is to listen to what they say… and Samuel says it very clearly.
Here’s what you can take away:
Day passes are in demand
Samuel shares that she’d “happily “subscribe” to a coffee shop that set itself up for extended work sessions, so that I don’t have to pay for my desk-away-from-home by drinking excessive amounts of coffee.”
But the local coffee shop doesn’t need to co-workify its business. They don’t want folks hanging out for hours for the price of a cup of coffee.
This is the exact definition of a day pass to your coworking space. She doesn’t want to pay for a desk to use 40 hours, 5 days a week. She wants convenience, reliability, flexibility, and a community built around the needs of remote work.
Partner with your local coffee shops. Your space probably offers coffee already. Are you buying it locally? Does the indie shop nearby provide the beans or the brewing? Or do you offer discounts between your businesses? However you structure it, be friends with the local coffee places to better serve hybrid workers like Samuel!
Vary the times of networking events
Even with coworking spaces hosting workers whose schedules, like Samuel notes, aren’t the typical business day, valuable networking and educational events often happen “after hours.” But that’s the advantage of flex work: it doesn’t conform to the typical 9 to 5. And after hours are being reclaimed for personal and family time, maintaining that healthy work/life balance.
“There’s a world of lonely, restless hybrid workers just longing for a little midday human contact to pep us up for another few hours of work,” Samuel writes. “As someone who starts my workday very early, I’m way too exhausted to do networking at 7 p.m.—and like a lot of people, I embraced hybrid work precisely so that I’d have those late-afternoon and evening hours available for my kids. Neighborhood restaurants could get in on the action, too, by offering lunchtime specials to lure in the work-from-home gang.”
Offer more reason to be in your space during the day? Yes, please. Partner with a local restaurant to cater the hour-long meetup? Again, yes. Plus, events held during the workday are less stressful on your community managers and staff, who may have to stay late to host and clean up. And publicly promoted and available events are fantastic ways to fill your pipeline with new coworking member leads.
Help solve the dinner rush
In a very valid observation, Samuel notes that grocery store rotisserie chickens are often ready for dinner-time pick up. But with her hybrid work schedule, she’s not on the road during the rush hour.
How can your space help your members bring dinner home to the family? Is there a meal delivery service from local restaurants you can coordinate? Is there a local caterer who can offer a weekly menu with signups?
Much of this flex workforce wants to hold onto the work/life balance they discovered during the pandemic. They gained back time spent commuting and they’ve learned to optimize their work time outside of a typical, prescribed block of hours. But families still need to eat. Maybe this is another service your coworking community can help solve.
Help solve ‘midday Zoom face’
Coworking spaces differ from executive suites for one very specific reason: the community. Offering more services to your community can help deepen that sense of belonging and service. And Samuel makes a great case for one particular service: salon.
Stepping out for a haircut and makeup is time consuming and disruptive. But when a hybrid worker has a big virtual presentation with cameras-on, they might want a little touch up before going live.
Like the other ideas Samuel outlines, your local business community definitely includes barbers, salon owners, hair stylists, makeup artists, and the like. Schedule a window of time when that person comes into your space for a mobile makeover hour. From quick trims to camera-ready looks, so much can be achieved in one corner of your space!
The once-a-week workout
Alongside food, salon services, and networking events, coworking space amenities now often include wellness. Mediation. Massage. Yoga. Exercise. And that last one is what Samuel is looking for. She doesn’t want a full time gym membership anymore. But a coworking space membership that has a Peloton room? A drop in yoga class? Even a relationship with the local pool for discounted day passes?
That’s the stuff the flex work force — and your prospective coworking member — wants today.
Read the full article for more of Alexandra Samuel’s observations or check out her book,
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