How Much Money Are You Leaving On The Table?
I see this a lot. And don’t worry it’s not just you and it’s not just the workspace industry.
People dick around for ages looking for shortcuts, quick fixes and how ‘to get in front of as many people as possible.’
They hear how Richard Branson kicked off his empire with a magazine at school and now look for how to do the same trick for their coworking space.
Even though they run a coworking space in 2018 and Richard was a 16 year old at a public school in 1966, but hey I’ve had these conversations.
So once you have waded through all of that bollox and realised that you are not the only one who uses the internet to research and buy things you could be ready to read take some action from this blog.
How to connect With 560 People a Week
So imagine you opened a coworking space in London five years ago, I’m writing this in 2018 so that would be 2013 and you thought you’d better get a website at some point, but you did not know how to do that.
Check out my mates at Jammy Digital – how to buy a website guide and why you should not spend 1000’s on a website post.
So you got someone to make one for a few hundred pounds, euros or kunas.
Because you did not want to annoy people with the email you only emailed them when you had an event to plug.
You emailed them a week before, and because you only email them now and then are not sure what to expect, but you would hate to annoy anyone.
I mean why would someone join your email list is they DID NOT WANT to hear about what you do?
GDPR means it is hard for someone to sign up for your communication, so they have asked to hear from you.
ABC – Always be communicating
So then you have had bits of a website for five years, and in that time you have looked around, heard facebook is right and then heard it is terrible, tried Instagram a few times but never got anything from it and then tried SnapChat because a Gary Vaynerchuck fan said it works.
You’d like to do a video or podcast but don’t know where to begin, the best source of new people are members referring people, and you do some events but never get around to putting them on the website, coz well you are not sure what to do with the site.
OMG
I am tired just writing that.
How much have you done in the last five years?
Five years ago you opened a coworking space in London, and ALL you did was post a blog a week and then added to the website as you worked out what to do.
From the very beginning, you collected the email address by asking people to sign up for news about events and members.
You sent this email out every week, nothing pushy, just a reminder and update.
In this email, you always reminded people that they were free to unsubscribe if they did not want to hear about coworking and whatever you else you did.
So throughout five years, you would have sent 260 emails and posted 260 blogs.
No facebook, no twitter or anything else.
Where do you think you’d be now?
So imagine two people a week joined your email list a week you’d have 520 people who were in your target market or at least a fan.
You would have emailed them your updates, and they’d be closer to you.
I mean if I asked you to do a talk to 560 people you’d put some effort it wouldn’t you?
Every time you had an event you’d have more people coming, ONLY because you were communicating to people better.
Know, like and trust
I’ve been following both coworking and the dark art of content marketing for nearly a decade and every week I check who is posting what on their websites in London.
So few spaces post on a regular basis that you’d be mad not to.
And people who show up with a post every week get more email subscribers, rank better in search engines and give a clearer idea of what their space stands for when people land on the site.
When you show up and people get to know you move from know, to like and then to trust and that is the primary emotion we give our money to people in exchange for something, trust.
How much SEO do you need for your website?
I know one space that spends £750 a month on SEO and does not post any blogs on their website.
I’ve asked every SEO pro I know what you do for £750 a month to a website with no fresh content on and they all stayed quiet.
The best SEO you can do for your website is posting regular content that helps your customers.
One of the best places to find out about SEO is the mighty Yoast Blog.
Yoast is a WordPress Plugin that checks your writing and guides you through keywords.
If you spend a couple of hours watching their videos and know how to use Microsoft Word or Google Docs you’ll be fine.
Focus on your website
When you focus on your site, you are investing in your very own digital outpost.
I posted my first blog post in 2006 and had been following and interviewing people in the industry since then, the two things that have stayed constant are website and email.
The places like Myspace, Google+, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin either die or the rules change.
Sure these are all essential distribution channels, but you are not in control of how they work how you reach people.
The last thing to consider is this, how you connect with people and market your coworking or maker space is very different to how British Airways, TGI Fridays and WeWork do their shit.
You probably only need 100 people signed up every month for its work like a dream, and then you’ll have a new set of problems.
Like Kevin Kelly spells out in his related blog post here you only need 1000 true fans, and the more deeply connected they are to who you are and what you are about the more fun and profitable it will be.
The Speed of trust
When you have high trust with 1000 people, you’ll have the problem of a waiting list, not looking for members.
There is also a short book by Stephen M. R. Covey called the Speed Of Trust, which explains how when trust is high, speed is high and the cost is low.
The best way to do that is to write 750 words on your website every week, and I can show you how.
