> *But the reason it worked for me was that the way I share things I'm > passionate about is one to one. That doesn't mean it's going to work for > all. Perhaps the best thing to do is think hard about your project, about > your dream (or any dream you have), think about it in your heart so hard > you can't cope any more without telling the world, and then think "how do I > tell the world about this"? When I do that, my instinct is to invite a ton > of people to one to one chats, sit them down, take out a bit of paper and a > prop (in my case it was a printed floorplan of the proposed space) and get > so excited about things that the person cannot help but be swept along. > They feed off my excitement and just want to be part of it, they may not > even know why.*
This, so much. People are used to being bombarded with sales stuff all day every day. Their walls go up fast and easy. But those walls don't go up quite so quickly if you're bearing your soul and showing people *you*. People respond to what you believe in and what you represent. I'd also add that we're not talking about you having to personally recruit every single member for the entire lifetime of your community. What you want is to achieve a critical mass of people who have bought into a shared culture that is well-defined enough that each person is now an agent of it. So when a prospective member wanders in and your space captain is off buying coffee filters, any member in the space could stop what they're doing for a few minutes and show them what your community represents. It's unbelievably powerful when you're able to get there. *NOW my biggest hurdle is asking people to pay for it. Where's that blog > post Tony, Alex?* Since your space is not open yet, this one might help: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/09/how-to-fund-your-coworking-space/ Ultimately, people will pay for something they value. For better or worse, people value having access to a space that acts as the home base for a community they want to be a part of. (Note: they don't need to actually use the space to value it. Knowing they have access to it is value unto itself.) Right now you have the unique opportunity to invite people to be founding supporters of something that you and others hope will be around serving the local community for a long time. That's worth money to people. In my experience, that all becomes reality when you have an address and a date. When you're able to tell your supporters, who are waiting in the wings, that you need X dollars by Y date to make this thing a reality, that's when it all clicks into place. Tony *---* *Projects: Open Coworking <http://opencoworking.org/> • Cotivation <http://cotivation.co/> • Consulting <http://tonybacigalupo.com/news/consulting/>* *eBook: No More Sink Full of Mugs <http://nwc.co/mugs>* *Connect: Personal site <http://tonybacigalupo.com/> • Twitter <http://twitter.com/tonybgoode> • Facebook <http://facebook.com/tonybacigalupo>* On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 6:52 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Matt ! > > Gret information !! > > Just downloaded and due to your earlier post "Lessons from our first year > running a coworking space" we are building a sales strategy heavy on > incentives and eliminating any "free" anything. > > Thanks! > > Shane > > On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 9:04:25 PM UTC-4, Matt D. wrote: >> >> Hi everyone. >> >> I wrote a blog post about how we got our first coworking members before >> we opened our doors. I thought some folks might find it helpful, so here's >> the link: >> >> >> http://www.theskillery.com/blog/2015/10/26/how-we-landed-our-first-customers >> >> Included at that post (near the bottom) is a link to the PDF of the >> "Early Adopter Membership Agreement" that we used. Feel free to download it >> and put it to good use, if it helps! >> >> Enjoy! >> -Matt >> > -- > 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.
