Membership Perks

[Jessica Hill]

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 

[RedRokk]

Hey Jessica, we do this with our members. Each of our members has a keycard to access the space, which includes their picture, name, company, and our space's logo. We have been negotiating with businesses around town to offer between 15-25% off their services if our member comes in with their badge. 

We decided on the businesses to approach based on suggestions from our members and how far they were from our space. So far we have mostly coffee shops, restaurants, and bars but we are talking to a couple of more traditional businesses such as gyms and printing services now. 

When we approached the business we showed them the keycard our members used and explained how many people we have and how we would promote them. Promotion included being featured in our newsletter, keeping a menu of services in our space for members to review, listing them in our member services directory, and in our sign up packages. We are also going to begin featuring them on our website and social media profiles. 

So far the response from both members and businesses has been positive. We had a couple businesses push back on the discount amount we were asking for, but we explained that those were the minimum thresholds to be included with us.

Hope this helps.

Tyler

[Evelind]

Thanks for providing feedback on this topic. Do you do anything formal like a written agreement with the businesses or is it just an informal, verbal agreement with them?

Thanks Again!

[Lisa Anne Logan]

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 :)

[Alex Hillman]

"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

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[Susan Dorsch]

Hi all,

This is one of many situations where you should put yourself in the shoes of your members and figure out what they'd want. We've had various so-called "partnerships" pitched to us in the past to provide discounts to our members that generally fall flat because they don't offer anything of actual value to our members. I don't join a coworking space to get a discount on Zipcar or 10% off a local restaurant. I join a coworking space because I want to get great work done, meet other interesting people, and get support in my progress. 

Just some food for thought - starting a network of "partnerships" is tempting, but it's a lot of work for what I'd argue isn't much value.

S

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Office Nomads         
officenomads.com  
206-323-6500(o)

206-484-5859(m)

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[Tom Brandt]

The most successful partnerships we have had are massage therapists who come once a week for a couple of hours and give discounted massages to our members. The members loved it, the massage therapists, all of whom were just starting out, built up a clientele of satisfied members, and it was a non-disruptive activity.

--
twb
member, Workantile

@twbrandt

[Lisa Anne Logan]

Such good advice, Alex - thanks! 

Also, has anyone used AnyPerk? Too expensive for us (it's $10 per member per month, and we have $150 members) but could be interesting to this group. 

On Oct 2, 2014, at 12:00 PM, Tom Brandt <twbr...@gmail.com> wrote:

The most successful partnerships we have had are massage therapists who come once a week for a couple of hours and give discounted massages to our members. The members loved it, the massage therapists, all of whom were just starting out, built up a clientele of satisfied members, and it was a non-disruptive activity.

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Susan Dorsch <su...@officenomads.com> wrote:

Hi all,

This is one of many situations where you should put yourself in the shoes of your members and figure out what they'd want. We've had various so-called "partnerships" pitched to us in the past to provide discounts to our members that generally fall flat because they don't offer anything of actual value to our members. I don't join a coworking space to get a discount on Zipcar or 10% off a local restaurant. I join a coworking space because I want to get great work done, meet other interesting people, and get support in my progress. 

Just some food for thought - starting a network of "partnerships" is tempting, but it's a lot of work for what I'd argue isn't much value.

S

__
Office Nomads         
officenomads.com  
206-323-6500(o)

206-484-5859(m)

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Lisa Anne Logan <lisa...@hattery.com> 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 triedunsuccessfully 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 

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twb
member, Workantile

@twbrandt

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[Jessica Hill]

Thanks Tyler! You've been super helpful. 

Jessica 

On Saturday, September 27, 2014 11:18:55 AM UTC-4, Tyler Byrd wrote:

[Jessica Hill]

Love that, Tom! 

[Jessica Hill]

Thanks, Susan. Makes sense. 

Jessica 

[Jessica Hill]

Yes, makes sense. I am not sure I would want a business to come in and just advertise their product. You live and you learn right? Thanks Alex. 

Jessica