Hey Susan, I had this queued up to finish up while I was on the road and totally forgot as it fell to the bottom of the pile...so here we go!
Here's the deal - there's nothing *wrong* with asking for a financial commitment, but here's something to consider: you're goal right now should be growing participation, rather than growing financial commitment. Why? Two reasons: *Reason 1: Most people don't know what coworking is, or why it's better (and they don't care to be told, no matter how hard you try). * What they DO know is that being alone sucks for them. You can show them how MUCH better being around each other is, even if it's only once a week and in someone else's home. Consider your weekly meetups a bit like a path for the curious to discover the value of coworking, and leave the opportunity for them to want more. Because "wanting more" is the right kind of motivation to lead to paying members. *Reason 2: It's a lot easier to get a participating, engaged person to pay for community membership than it is to get a paying person to participate if they're not already motivated to.* We see here on the list time and again. "I filled my coworking space with people...but they're not interacting! How do I get people to collaborate and contribute to the community?" For a non-coworking example, there's an interesting research example where a school was having a problem with parents picking up their kids late after school. They implemented a fine - effectively a fee - for late pickup, hoping to curb the problem. Instead, the problem got worse. Behavioral economists determined that it's because once people pay a fee, they perceive it as their responsibility being "taken care of", since they paid, and more parents would knowingly pick up their kids late because they knew there was a way to pay their way out of it. You're doing coworking out of your home, which means that the real costs are nominal...so the only real reason to do it is to filter out the people who won't become paying members. But who's to say that they won't be great participators and contributors, introducing more people to the effort and sharing your stories and experiences with people beyond your immediate reach? 100% of my experience says that having that person on your "team", even if they *never* pay, is far better than having a bunch of paying people who don't care to contribute to the community. I'd say you'll get far more long-term value from asking them for non-financial contributions at this point, and set the expectation that their *participation* is valued, not just their attendance. Right now, focus on getting people together, and helping them see that working together is better than working alone. They'll see it for themselves, and over time, want to do it more often and in a better environment. And that's when you can offer membership pre-sales, because they'll already want it. Oh, and have fun :) -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 4:35 AM, Susan Jones <su...@readysetstartup.com>wrote: > Alex, I'm just launching a once a week coworking day at my house for 5 > weeks before the end of the year. This is to draw together some of the > people I've been talking to about coworking and develop some community in > preparation for building towards launching a space next year. A bit of a > pilot project in community development if you like. :-) Do you think I > should be asking people to make a (small) financial commitment at this > stage to participate for these 5 weeks? > Thanks > Susan > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
