Hey Justin, welcome to the list! You're in an interesting spot, here. Squishing "community management" and sales together might have a lot to do with why the previous people didn't work out, so I can't help but wonder exactly what expectations you've been given. Is it all about putting butts in seats? Does it matter whose butt? :)
Most valuable thing you can do right now - before this big upcoming growth spurt - is to spend some time really working to understand why the community that already exists is there. Are they willing to be helpful to each other, ore more focused on their own work? What drew them together, besides needing a place to work? What stories of success can you learn? Use what you learn to reverse engineer what makes this community tick, and what the *members* might want to see out of the upcoming growth. Make sure that aligns well with what your boss wants...and then, while you're growing, focus all of your energy on encouraging the community to play an active role in that growth in ways that you know they're already interested in (which you know, because you spent time working to understand them). *Just be careful - growth spurts can be extremely difficult on existing communities.* Too often, growth becomes the goal that overshadows the community itself. Grow smart. One of the most consistent HIDDEN patterns I've seen in the coworking spaces I've studied is that growth spurts are almost always followed by disproportionate increases in attrition. If the ratio of relationships to strangers lands out of whack, that generosity and willingness to help out is likely to be impacted. In a lot of cases, this goes unnoticed (or is ignored) but over time creates a vicious cycle of turnover. New York, of all cities, is probably the easiest city to weather attrition because of the constant demand...but be prepared for this to impact the community that sets you apart from the others. Growth is great, but make sure that everyone (new and existing) is still sharing goals and expectations. Keep your edge by keeping your community involved in the growth. -Alex ------------------ *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Mon, Jun 6, 2016 at 2:58 PM, James Gifford <ja...@launchhouse.com> wrote: > An important question to ask is "what is the benefit that people get from > coworking?", and then sell *that*. Coworking by itself doesn't sell. > > Example: A big part of what we've done in a "sales" position at > LaunchHouse is organize events that are of interest to the type of people > we want in our space (developers, startup types, remote workers, etc). > We've also focused on attending events where our customers gather and > spreading the word that way. > > - James > > > On Monday, June 6, 2016, Justin Baron <justinbaro...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I wanted to get some feedback from people working within the industry. I >> just started working at a coworking space in NYC, at a smaller space. My >> job is sales related and entails me getting the space filled and keeping it >> filled, as the office is now expanding from about 70 people enjoying our >> space to close to 250 in the next few months. My boss hasn't given me any >> advice necessarily on how she got the space filled to full capacity now, so >> what would everybody recommend about getting it filled to 70 and then >> trying to get it to 100% capacity when we expand to 250. Thanks for any >> advice you can pass on how you all got people to sign up for memberships. >> >> Quick note, I was told to do mass emails with a ton of small businesses. >> >> Justin >> >> -- >> 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/d/optout. >> > > > -- > - James > 216.206.9338 > > -- > 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/d/optout. > -- 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/d/optout.
