"We do all the same marketing Tyler mentioned, plus announce them at our monthly happy hour. One idea that I tried unsuccessfully was inviting a partner to do a quick preso of their own to the happy hour group about their product and discount. Seemed like a great way to create a personal connection - the partner loved it, got to talk directly with interested members, etc. - but it just didn't feel right in the moment. I could read my members' faces and they felt like they were being held captive for an advertising campaign. So we won't be doing that again :)”
An alternative to this that we’ve done very successfully is encouraging the partner to TEACH something, or give actionable advice, rather than use that time to talk about themselves. Most people don’t like a sales pitch, but they DO like learning things that can help them in their lives and their businesses. When a vendor shares something useful, it not only keeps your members interested but also helps establish their trust in the vendor, and helps the vendor become a “go-to” resource (which turns into recommendations, etc). Many vendors who pitch us wanting to reach our members aren’t willing to put in even a little bit of time to earn our members’ trust, but ALL of the ones who do have built strong connections into the community and are often recommended by members over and over and over. Way, way more effective than the yawn-worthy sales pitch! -Alex On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Lisa Anne Logan <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Jessica, > +1 to Tyler's approach - it works out well. We do a few 'personal' services > like gym, but mostly focus on business service discounts. I occasionally > ask our members what services they're using, and then I pick a few from > that list to approach about a discount. Just position yourself as an > influencer amongst a great group of candidates in their target market, and > detail the internal marketing you'll do, and they're usually happy to offer > something. > We do all the same marketing Tyler mentioned, plus announce them at our > monthly happy hour. One idea that I tried *unsuccessfully* was inviting a > partner to do a quick preso of their own to the happy hour group about > their product and discount. Seemed like a great way to create a personal > connection - the partner loved it, got to talk directly with interested > members, etc. - but it just didn't feel right in the moment. I could read > my members' faces and they felt like they were being held captive for an > advertising campaign. So we won't be doing that again :) > On Friday, September 26, 2014 8:40:31 AM UTC-7, Jessica Hill wrote: >> >> Good Morning, >> >> >> We starting to think about creating perks (discounts from local >> businesses, and services) for our members. Do any of you have this at your >> coworking spaces? I am not exactly sure how go about asking businesses for >> discounts for our members especially since we are so new. >> >> Thanks! >> >> Jessica >> > -- > 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 [email protected]. > 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 [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
