Category: Space Owners

As a coworking business owner, you need to bring in new members into space as easily as possible. Also, the first impression lasts to the new members coming into space. From signing a lease agreement to sorting themselves out for the first time will form a clear impression about the venue of your space. Just like in a traditional office setup, the onboarding has to be more than filling out forms and getting a tour of the break room.

Community is what differentiates coworking spaces from other shared offices. Community helps coworking operators to build and retain a vibrant and collaborative member base. However, some space owners miss a great opportunity during the on-boarding member process to plant the seeds of engagement that will help the new members thrive within the space.

Steps to Onboard New Coworking Members:

1.) Customizable Sign up

Have a web form where the new members can fill out the information about themselves and chooses the membership that suits their needs.

2. ) Sign a Lease Contract

The lease contract can be sent in advance via email. Make sure that the new member has read and understood the Terms and Conditions laid out in the agreement.

3.) Give access to your software and services

In the software, allow the new member to book meeting rooms, receive invoices, change membership if needed so he or she will be familiarized on how to use the software. Orient the new members on the services offered within the coworking space.

4.) Set up access control

You can give your new members with access cards, or they can make use of their mobile credentials depending on the technology you are using.

5.) Show them around office amenities

Let them walk through the place and show them where are the private offices and open space is and where the different amenities are located.

6.) Ask them Questions

Throughout the process listed above, try to answer any question that the new members might have. Help them to clarify their doubts and worries.

More Tips to Improve Onboarding Process

One of the biggest mistakes of space owners is to forget what it was like to be a newbie in a coworking space. Think outside the box on how you welcome the new onboarding members and make them integrate with the community the moment they join your space as that will help to create quality members. Here are some tips on how to do it:

Don’t make the orientation solely about rules and regulations

Instead of handing a 20-something page boring manual, leave some space for human interaction and communication. Moving beyond the do’s and don’ts create opportunities for new members to interact with each other and embrace a new ritual that makes them want to come back.

Try to achieve inclusion

As you walk new members along the hallway, introduce them to other coworkers whom you meet on the way. You can group each month’s new members so you can facilitate the orientation process easier and at the same time, it allows the group to make connections in their comfort place. It is a good idea to ask the veterans to talk to the newbies as they group together or invite them to certain events.

Gamify the orientation process

To break from the monotony, start with an ice-breaker question where everyone can relate to. Then prepare the rest of the community to do their part in welcoming the new onboarding members. The goal of this to make the new members comfortable within the coworking space and make them able to familiarize themselves on how the place works.

Empower members to discover

It’s normal for people to be curious with other members but they don’t know the way on how to connect with them. Encourage them to ask questions to their peers, rather than going straight to the community manager or operator. You can also do role play on the onboarding process, such as a mock conversation when someone is talking too loud over a phone. This way they have an idea on how to handle when a real conflict arises.  If you create an environment where they rely on you for more things, you will feel burdened and stressed about it. But, if you give them tools to work with and encourage them to discover what they will learn inside, then they’ll thrive on their own.

Don’t make it a mandatory

At the end of the day, the community doesn’t work the same way with corporate. Every activity within the space is more on invitation rather than mandatory. It’s “were doing this, would you like to come? and “we’re really excited to have you.” It’s not about making them feel bad, but it’s reinforcing to them that their attendance is important to you. When some new members don’t want to join events, then be okay with that. You might lose a lot of members if you force them to.

Create opportunities for coworkers and new members to collide naturally. Encourage experiences that lead to interaction. Every newcomer is excited to meet new people, so make them feel welcome by everyone. So that’s it, are you now ready to level up your onboarding process?

Whatever you do, and no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to do marketing on your own. With competition arising on the market, each day, fresh ideas are formed and new companies are launched, and yet, other startups are failing. Of course, we don’t want to be part of the latter. One way to do that is to focus not just on gaining customers, but to turn these customers into brand advocates.

10 Ways to Turn your Members into Advocates

Find your Advocates

The reality is, customers will visit the space then create bookings and leave. Some will become regulars and others have the potential to become advocates. ‘Potential’ because not all members can become an advocate right away. They must find a reason first to be one, so they can really identify and feel with your coworking space.

You can start by sorting your customers or members by letting them answer a quick question or survey: “On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends,  family, or colleagues?” Then the members who answered 9 or 10 are your potential space advocates.

Ask and Give Incentives for Referrals

Having a referral program is a great way to strengthen the loyalty of your members. Through this, they can bring in new customers through word-of-mouth sharing rather than just waiting for the customers to come in. Don’t make the referral system complicated, but let it be easy for them until it becomes already a culture already inside your coworking space. This can be done by including links on your websites and social media profiles. Reach out to your long-term clients or regular visitors and encourage them to share your business. Those who have placed a higher rate on the survey, encourage them also to share their experience with their family and friends.

As they give referrals, it’s also good to give back by offering incentives. This shows that you have acknowledged the efforts of your loyal members and in response, this will increase the desire to refer more. Incentives can come in many ways, you can consider giving them free hours of using conference rooms, a free day pass, free coffee or meals, and many others that you can specifically think that will be best for them.

Online Reviews

Word-of-mouth marketing strategy can evolve in the digital world by doing positive online reviews. You don’t have to wait for a 5-star rating to just pop out right away, but you can make your members become advocates by encouraging them to give an online review. Utilize social media and your website for them to leave online reviews. Don’t make it hard for them, but make the online reviews accessible. People nowadays would look on online reviews before they check into something, so make the most out of every opportunity you have.

Do Fun Things

Provide opportunities for coworkers and members to have fun. Just as other organizations have their own parties and events, you can also create it on your coworking space. Big events or even small ones such as having meals together, going to parties can create fun moments for your coworkers. You don’t have to make it compulsory for everyone, but only for those who are willing. Give them a heads up first so they can fit it in their schedule. Through this gatherings, you are creating moments that are memorable for them. All the more, your members will have a connection with your space that new members will be excited to join also.

Remember their Names

Many of us want to be remembered with names right? Though it doesn’t create a big impact for the company, but it stirs up trust and it shows that you value your members. It makes them feel that they are part of the community and they belong. In addition, it shows that you value them as a person and not just their referral. Make it natural and don’t go overboard by trying so hard. Your members will notice if you’re not doing it genuinely.

Create Shareable Content

Another way to leverage social media sharing is to create unique and shareable content. Such as inspirational quotes, beautiful photographs, group photos, or photos of your space that can be easily shared by the followers and members. If this will be done consistently and able to build connections with your members, this can become a natural part of the members’ journey.

Reward Employees

Not just the customers, but even your employees are the best prospects to become advocates. Encourage your members to brag about their jobs and their experiences in working at your coworking space. Give incentives to employees who are able to share their work and bring in new members. Involve your employees in planning creatively, as they are more involved, all the more they will speak highly of your workplace.

Diversify your Offerings

As a flexible workspace, you have to acknowledge that your customers are also changing. As customers are changing, their interest also varies. If you can observe, many are looking for unique layouts, cute and colorful designs, even with the tables and chairs, people are seeking for a variety of layout options. With these constant change, consider how you can diversify your offerings on amenities, special offers, layout options, equipment used, and others to inspire members’ loyalty.

Remain loyal to your brand

Stay loyal to your brand. Whatever space you have created, stand by your brand. If you have advertised that your place is for entrepreneurs, then continue to cater for entrepreneurs. Whatever it is you provide, make sure that you are creating a true value for your members. As you want loyalty from your members, be loyal to your brand. Don’t be alarmed or get overwhelmed right away from the competition. Keep doing what your members love about your space. Give them a reason to stay and be an advocate still. Remind them of your services and make sure that they know what you offer. If they do not, it will have an effect on the way they will share it to others.

Act on Feedback

As you gain feedback and learn from people what they want about your brand, don’t forget to act on it. Improve what is needed and excitingly share your progress to them through various platforms such as social media or through a word-of-mouth sharing.

Final Words

So that’s it, one of the many ways to turn your members into advocates. Remember, members of your coworking space will become advocates if they love what you offer and if you make it easy for them to share it to others also. If their experience at your coworking space is worthwhile, they’ll definitely share it to others also. Hope this has given you an inspiration to be at your best. Don’t forget to share this to others also!

 

Workspace culture is the environment that you create for your employees. Positive workplace culture attracts talent, drives engagement, impacts happiness and satisfaction. It affects performance which is the mix of your organization’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors and attitudes that contribute to the emotional and relational environment of your workplace. It plays a powerful role in determining their work satisfaction, relationships and progression.

Workplace culture is an important factor to all workplaces. It determines how pleasant or toxic your work environment is. It has a direct influence on how your employee fits into the organization and your organization’s ability to attract and retain employees, because it shapes the environment that they work in. It is very important to have a good workspace culture, it’s natural to want to work in an environment you enjoy spending time in. This means that if you want the best staff for your team, you’ll have to invest in creating a strong workplace culture. A good workspace culture drives financial performance. It also encourages your employees to voice their opinions and ideas.

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You already understand the importance of having a strong company culture, but even with the desire to build one, it’s not always obvious what steps to take.

Here are some important and simple features for you to follow to improve your workspace culture:

Management and leadership

Your management system should be strong as to get better output. Whereas good leadership plays an important role in improving your workspace management. It should use a wide range of tools and techniques to gain insight and clarity about who they are, what they are good at, and what they can strengthen or delegate. A good management and leadership thinks of the employees and coworkers as integral part of the team, and not just as another group of people to work with.

Trust your employees to manage their responsibilities effectively, and let go of the idea that work has to happen a certain way at a certain time. Embrace and inspire employees’ autonomy. Letting them do so, will allow them to make the sometimes difficult but incredibly rewarding leap from being held accountable to their responsibilities to embracing accountability as they take on, and own initiatives.

Digital Workspace Strategy

This can also be one way to improve workspace culture by implementing digital tools in your workspace. Don’t just do it with phones and Google Docs. The key to success depends on the implementation of a digital workplace strategy – requiring one that is capable of driving true change within the organization.

By intelligently combining the technologies that many businesses already use, the digital workplace has broken down the communication barriers and is transformation employee experience to one promoting efficiency, growth, and innovation. Here are a few examples:

• Chat rooms, private and group messaging
• Discussion Forums

Chat and Collaboration

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• Google Apps for Business
• Video conferencing
• Zoom
• Skype
• Google Hangouts

Project Management Tools

• Trello
• Jira
• Asana

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Strong Co-Worker Relationship

It is very important to build strong relationship with each other. Working relationships take time to mature, so focus on being consistent and dependable.

1. Develop trust with colleagues – Develop trust by guarding each other, encouraging confidence and not gossiping.
2. Work with your Team – Communicate well by listening and speaking clearly.
3. Be respectful of others –  If you work in a shared office space, limit personal phone calls and distractions such as radios. Maintain a professional and courteous attitude.                                            
4. Take responsibility for your mistakes, rather than casting blame on someone or something else. Integrity is central to trust. Be fair and honest in all your dealings. Share resources and information with coworkers.

Creating an Employee-Centric Workspace

An employee-centered workplace is one in which all individuals, programs, processes, and systems are focused on helping employees become fully successful. Assess your employees’ level of satisfaction with their supervisors. Ensure that all employees are in the right jobs –  that their talents are appropriate for the work they must do. Few things are more miserable than doing a job for which one is not a good fit.

Conclusion:

As the business or space owner, ask this question to yourself, do your employees see work as a way to make an impact? Are they passionate about the work they do? The better you understand their aspirations and goals, the better you can help your team to see the purpose in their work. A great culture attracts the best workers, increases overall retention and improves performance.

For a lot of companies, content marketing falls to the wayside.  This is one of the biggest marketing failures a company can make.  Why?

Most consumers do most of their research online without the help or influence of advertisements.  People surf the web for information about products and services that they are interested in, and that information can easily be found within the body of some well-written content.

Instead of focusing the majority of your energy on advertisements that most people will try and avoid, why not create content that they will go looking for?

A Blog is Your Best Friend

While a blog can be extremely useful for SEO purposes, a blog can also be your richest source of content.  Blog posts can be filled with extremely interesting and useful information that consumers actually want to read.  Advertisements can be great for bringing awareness to your brand, but a lot of the time consumers are trying to close out of your advertisement as quickly as possible.

With a blog, however, you can provide all of the information that consumers are looking for!  Write really great content and then include some really compelling Call-to-Action buttons on your page, which will help you drive those leads.  Here are some interesting stats:

• Blogs give sites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links (Content+)
• Companies that blog 15+ times per month get 5 times more traffic than companies that don’t blog (Hubspot)
• Companies with an active blog report 97% more leads. (Content+)

Engage with Customers through Social Media

Social Media is a great way to share the content you are publishing with everyone who follows you on social media networks.  It is also a great way to engage with customers who have questions about your company or products, or customers who simply want to compliment or critique you.  When customers see that you are actively engaging with them, it will give your company a better image and help ensure more leads and even future sales.  Did you know:

• Content from reputable sources is most shared (UCLA)
• 90% of users listen to recommendations shared from friends (Voltier Digital)
• Clicks from shared content are 5 times more likely to result in a purchase (Voltier Digital)
• 87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content (Content Marketing Institute)
• 80% of users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook (Huffington Post)
• People spend more than 50% of their time online with content and an additional 30% of their time on social channels where content can be shared (AOL & Nielson)

Save Some Money and Write More Content

Content Marketing is one of the most cost effective methods of marketing.  Think about it.  How much does it cost to write compelling content and distribute it?  Virtually nothing when you compare it to the costs of advertising on Google.

Traditional advertisement methods are still necessary because they do work, but as many marketers are saying, “Content is King.”  Content Marketing is cost effective, and it caters to the needs of today’s consumers by providing them with useful AND interesting information.  Here is some food for thought:

• Interesting content is a top 3 reason that people follow brands on social media (Content+)
• 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles over ads (Content+)
• Sources providing full-text content are 2.3 times as likely to have users return for a second visit (Pulse)
• 68% of users spend time reading content from a brand they are interested in (Content Marketing Association)
• People want to be in control of the content they receive: 86% of people skip tv commercials, 44% of direct mail is never opened, and 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted into. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing

What sort of content marketing strategies are you using for your business, and how are they working for you?