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"Marketing makes these promises and service delivers that. So for us, StoryBrand and unreasonable hospitality, you know, really work together kind of hand in glove. And StoryBrand is, you know, really about thinking about how you communicate that you care to your customers. And the unreasonable hospitality side of things is how you prove it."— Sonya Whittam
Welcome to Coworking Values the podcast of the European Coworking Assembly.
Each week we deep dive into one of the values of accessibility, community, openness, collaboration and sustainability. Listen in to learn how these values can make or break Coworking culture.
Speaker 9: Hello Coworking
Community Builders.
This is the Coworking Values Podcast.
So today in the studio is Sonya and Julie.
I met them just before lockdown in
COVID in Nashville when we were doing
the StoryBrand Guide training together.
And then since then, unreasonable
Hospital h Brutality has become the, the
book du Jo of the Coworking Industry.
And it's a really important book.
It, I've worked in hospitality
for about 3000 years.
And I really, really write that book.
So in here we dig into hospitality,
customer service, what it
means, how it's positioned.
And the best news is sometime in
June, June the 11th, I think it is.
I should know that.
Doing an intro to my own podcast, Dr.
JJ Peterson from StoryBrand, who wrote
the Guide and everything with Will Guera
about Unreasonable Hospitality and.
Julie and Sonya are running a story
brand workshop and an unreasonable
hospitality workshop in Holburn in
Central London, and I know you're
supposed to be called and leave this
to the end, but if you click the link
in the show notes and type in the code.
Coworking values, all one word that will
get you the mate's rate to the workshop.
It is gonna be amazing.
I will be there and I know people
that are doing things like that
always say amazing, but I cannot wait.
I'm flying in for my luxury layer
in Galicia to be at that event.
So that's enough for me.
Let's get into them.
Speaker: I am Over the moon again.
I mean, I know I say that nearly
every episode, but Sonya and Julia are
back in the luxury studio, and we're
gonna be talking about StoryBrand
and Unreasonable Hospitality I'm
gonna let them introduce themselves.
So, who, which of you
two wants to go first?
Do you wanna go first?
Sonya?
Like, what would you like to be known for?
And then batter over to Julie.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
So I'm Sonya Whitten.
I co-own story 22 with Julie Firth
and we run a full service marketing
agency that specialises in StoryBrand.
But also over the last couple of years
we've been delivering unreasonable
hospitality workshops across the uk.
And it's something that we've.
Feel really passionately about our agency
has been running for six years and as
we've kind of gone through that time,
it is become very obvious to us that you
know, marketing and, and service the.
So closely linked.
And you know, the way we kind of think
about it is that marketing makes these
promises and service delivers that.
So for us, StoryBrand and Unreasonable
Hospitality, you know, really work
together kind of hand in glove and
StoryBrand is, you know, really about
thinking about how you communicate
that you care to your customers and.
The unreasonable hospitality side
of things is how you prove it.
And we are going to be running
a workshop in London in June
that kind of covers this.
Julie, do you wanna take
over and say a bit more?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
So I'm Julie Sonya's business partner.
And in the last couple of years, I,
I think as, as sort of AI's come in
we are leaning more and more into
delivering training and workshops
for, clients that are trying to,
trying to stand out, I suppose.
And one of the things we love about
Unreasonable Hospitality is it is
really does give people a, a very
clear competitive advantage when
it's delivered in the right way.
And just to kind of reiterate what so
was saying about how StoryBrand and.
Unreasonable hospitality
fit really well together.
So obviously StoryBrand helps you
understand who you are, and then
Unreasonable Hospitality helps you then
deliver what you stand for and how you
wanna project that onto your clients so
that your customers, your members, so that
they have the best possible experience.
So that's that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker: Let's set, set
this up a little bit.
'cause like we met in, oh my God, is it
like six years ago or five years ago?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Yes.
In Nashville.
Speaker: Nashville doing StoryBrand
guide training and, you know, we just
like followed each other ever since.
And I, I, when I'm Reasonable
hospitality came out I love that book.
I think everyone should read.
I dunno.
I just think everyone should read it.
I haven't got a why they should read
it, but you know, I'm reasonable.
Hospitality and Kitchen Confidential by
Anthony Bourdain and I always like to
tell the, I grew up in five star hotels
and served Roger Moore, but actually I
spent most of my careers in middle of the
road casual dining restaurants serving
mediocre for heaters and cheeseburgers
to people drinking too much tequila.
But there was always this like, human
interaction, and I think those two
books are like, as, as someone who
worked in catering, we used to call
it, they're, they're like, really?
They're really enjoyable to read
and you feel like you are at that.
That is something I wish I'd read in the
last century when I worked in catering.
And there's this matching of,
like you said just now, Julie,
of the story and the delivery.
And that's what I want to kind
of unpick for people here.
And that Unreasonable hospitality book
is all over the coworking industry.
And I feel that people.
I know someone who owns a, owns
a coworking space goes, I've
read this book, let's do this.
And there's a massive disconnect.
Which I hope you have the
answer to the disconnect 'cause
I dunno where I'm going now.
But yeah.
What do you think?
What do you think happens?
Speaker 3: Well, I, I think one of the,
the challenges there is if you think
about if you're familiar with Unreasonable
Hospitality, you'll, you'll know that some
of the work that Bill Gadara did was to
really, he had, he worked with his team.
He knew he couldn't get them on his own.
He had to bring the
team on board with that.
And, part of the process was to empower
them to be able to react in the moment
to create these incredible experiences.
Now, the challenge with that is unless
you have this kind of golden thread
running through everything that you
do about what you stand for, who you
are as a business, what you want to
be known for, without really drilling
down into that first, people are at
risk of going into a million different
directions is one of the things we see
from the workshops we deliver, is that.
You get a group of people around the
table and you get 'em to start thinking
in a different way about, about
the experience they could deliver.
And the the great thing is, is
they are full of excitement.
They're full of 1,000,001 different ideas.
All of a sudden they're really fired up.
But without something that.
Kind of gives you the not control,
but the guardrails, I suppose,
to kind of, stick within that
gives you a, what's your purpose?
What's the purpose of doing this
amazing thing for that person?
Does it fit with our values and
what we stand for and how we
wanna project ourselves to our,
to our customers or our members?
Without that in place first, then I.
Think that is one of the areas
where unreasonable hospitality
can quickly trip you up.
There are others, and I think
we'll go into those when we start
to talk about process as well.
But that, that for me, I think you have to
know what your story is first to then be
able to deliver on that story through the
unreasonable hospitality side of things.
Speaker: So with that story thing,
Sonya, like, I mean ideally everyone
would sit down and do a story brand,
whatever it is, brand script, but
like it is working out who you are.
Is that like a little bit at a
time over a year or is that like.
Right on a napkin and a cafe.
Like how does, because I hear and I say
things like that too, you really need
to find out your, what you're about.
But what is that in reality?
How do, how do you do that?
Especially if you're like a, you know,
a one, one or two person business in
Rochester running a coworking space.
Like how, what is the process
and time to get that done?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I, I, and actually,
it's a really interesting question that
you say, 'cause it's something that we
you know, we work with our customers
quite a lot on, and, you know, one
of the big, I thought you're gonna
say that's something we struggle with
ourselves, but actually I do, I do think
it's difficult to do it for yourself.
And I think the, you know, the, you go
back to, you know, don Miller saying
that, you know, that you are so close to
it, you can't see the wood for the tree.
So it's def, you know, definitely
it's, it's far more difficult
to do it for yourself because
you get that curse of knowledge.
You know, you know everything.
So it's difficult for you
to be able to work that out.
And I think that's, you know,
one of the reasons why, you know,
people do go to guides, to, to help
with that, to kind of work out.
Y you know, that.
Ability to be able to see as your
customer sees you not as you know,
everything, you know, you know
the ins and outs of your business.
It's difficult to think about how
your customer might see you there.
But I do think that position, and we'd
call it positioning, so you know, that
positioning of understanding what you
stand for needs to come before you even
start getting into your messaging and
should come before you get into, you
know, kind of thinking about the service.
You know, elements of that and
getting into, you know, where
your touch points might be.
So they, you know, it very much is
cyclical, but it, you, you have to be
thinking about what you stand for, who
you are, what experience you want your
customers to have before you can even
get into that marketing of the message.
So, you know, they kind of
fit really well hand in glove.
Speaker: Can I jump in there?
'cause I see I, and I've
been in these sessions.
People say like what you said
what triggered my excitement there
was when you said, stand for, and
people will say something like
oh yeah, we're a coworking space.
We, we stand for quality,
service and value.
And that's like Marks
and Spencer's in 1994.
Like, what do you actually believe in?
Like, you know, and how do you
get that bit out of, if, if
you can't go to a workshop?
Like how, how do you find that bit?
Because I think.
People, we've all done it.
You know, we've all like looked
at everyone else's website
and copied the best bits.
And I think that works less
than it ever has nowadays.
But how do you work out who you are?
That's a big question, isn't it?
Sorry,
Speaker 2: Julie, do
you wanna pick that up?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Well, I, I, I think actually
this comes back to who your
customers are first and foremost.
So, when we were chatting before
earlier Bernie, we were, we
were talking about the different
personalities that different coworking
faces might have and the different
people they're trying to attract.
And you could have one that
is trying to be a home.
From home and they want this to feel cosy
and that people are feel looked after.
And that could have a very different
personality to one that was very tech
focused where people needed efficiency.
And once you know, once you understand
who your customers are and what they
value, then that's how you understand.
How to prioritise your values.
So you could have you could
have a set of values internally,
personally if you are the founder.
And then it's how you how you refine
those values to be, understood by your
customers and, and be relatable to your,
your ideal customer profile, I suppose.
So there's there's no point in having say.
Say efficiency was one
of your your values.
If efficiency wasn't something that
chimed with your people that liked that
home from home co-working space, then
that's, it's, there's a disconnect.
There you are, you are not aligning
yourself with your customers.
So I, I think it, it always
goes back to the customers.
What is it your customers need?
And one of the coworker spaces we
worked with, they recognise that
actually who their target audience was.
Businesses that weren't quite big
enough to have their own premises,
or perhaps it wasn't cost efficient
for them to have their own premises,
but they were pitching to customers
themselves that they needed to appear.
Sometimes perhaps larger than they
actually were, but definitely impressive.
And be able to kind of sit
comfortably in that market space.
Now, they wouldn't be the right
customers for the home from home.
Coworking space so it can see suddenly
how the values then need to kind of shift
and adapt according to who the customers
are and what they're looking for.
Does that make sense?
Speaker: How, how can
I say no at that point?
But it does make sense.
Hopefully awkward as you were talking.
'cause I, I, you know, I've read
that book like 50,000 times now,
and the way he, instead of going
into, he just, does he say something
about non-negotiables in the book?
That it, it's like operating
like with intentionality and
knowing what you're trying to do.
And I'm, and the thing is nearly coming
into my head as I'm thinking, and then he
goes, what are your non, non-negotiables?
And it's about somewhere along
where he is just taken over 11
Madison Park and he's saying, this
is what, this is what we stand for.
And he, he's, it's in the book.
It's when he's talking about.
The speech he gives to the team and
he doesn't give the speech to the team
like he wants to first off, but then
months later he gives the speech to
the team, but he's like worked out with
the team what the non-negotiables are.
That was like a book review.
Sorry.
I like the way he said that
is what I'm trying to say.
Certainly.
What do you think?
Speaker 2: What's the, what do I think
to want, what about the non-negotiables?
Speaker: Yes, let's go with that.
Because
Speaker 2: pay for the question.
I actually, I, I think.
You know that that is right.
And actually one of the things that,
you know, we kind of talked about
before we came on here, which I think
is linked to what you've said there
is about your culture internally.
Your, your team has to want to deliver
those things for your customers.
The non-negotiables that you agree with,
your, you know, with, with your team.
They have to be brought onto that.
And, you know, very often.
You know, when we go to places that we
have a poor, you know, poor customer
service, we have a poor customer
poor customer service at every
touch point, it's because the team
culture internally and not brought
in to delivering that great service.
And you know, on the flip side of
that, we were, you know, we went to
Barcelona recently and we had some
food at a place called olive Greens.
And you could tell the team culture.
The, the non-negotiables were that, that
customers had to feel valued in there.
And we, you know, we had sort
of four or five different
touch points as we walked in.
They gave us a menu, you
know, as we ordered the food.
When they brought the food over to us,
when they came over to check the food.
Every single touch point was exceptional.
And it's because they're brought into
where we value our customers here.
We want 'em to have a good experience.
And, you know, we'd never been
to this restaurant before.
It's kind of a fast food, healthy place.
But you go and stand at the till and
order and the, you know, the lady,
the Maury at the front, if you like,
kind of, you know, walked us up to the
counter to explain how to order the
type of different food that we could
have, you know, what was best to have.
And it was that, you know,
she took time you know, to
really go through that with us.
And I think when you talk about those
kind of non-negotiables, they do start
with the culture internally at the team.
Speaker: There's there's a taco place
here in Vigo, which is 20 minutes walk
from our house, and there are more taco
places nearer and which are nice too.
But when you go in there, they,
there's like three people working
in there and they cook all the
food nearly in front of you.
And it is the real deal and it's real.
It's like real Mexican food, not
like Taco Bell kind of stuff.
And it's further to walk.
It's mayhem in there.
The food is amazing.
The two, the three people running it
like know what everybody's doing and
it's very small and I just love it.
You know, there's something about,
it's not like they, what, where
I'm going with this is, it's not
like they design the experience.
I don't think they sit down
and have a crew meeting.
Yeah.
Let's go rah, rah, rah.
Yeah.
Today we're focused on
ultimate guest service.
They're just like, really,
really love what they do, and.
They just managed to drop in.
Like as you leave they kind of throw you
a little Mexican suite and it, it's the,
it's the, oh god, dunno what to say.
They just, they just love it.
They love it.
So, you love it?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: They might have non-negotiables
that are almost un unspoken.
That is just a given
that this is who we are.
This is, maybe that is around the food,
around the energy that's in there.
That just brings that to life.
But I think, I think going back to
those values and the what your story
is and what your non-negotiables
are, that goes back to hiring the
people that you are hiring as well.
It's not about just.
Hiring someone that can be well
organised and manage the bookings.
It's how do they fit into that?
To that culture, like Sun was saying,
that you, you have to have that all
aligned for that, to get that buy-in
for people to really understand
that you're on a journey together.
This isn't just about
coming into work every day.
It's so much more than that.
And that's what we see in the workshops
is we've so lucky to be, have worked
with groups of people that clearly.
Get, get the non-negotiables.
That's not even really discussed.
It's kind of very it's
hinted at at the beginning.
Yes, that's what we do.
Of course, we're always trying
to deliver the very best.
How do we take it one step further?
And that's where it really then
starts to get super exciting.
Speaker: So with it, with both these
frameworks or these book, I'm gonna
say books 'cause it's, you know,
that's what most people will know.
It's like, you know, I've, I've
done StoryBrand everywhere.
And, I worked in hospitality and I
really loved the book and appreciate it.
And I, and in both books I see I've met
people in real life putting them into
into action, like practically applying
them rather than just sitting around
doing a podcast like this about them.
How do you.
When?
When you see, when you meet people,
all those, I'm gonna say like micro
businesses, 'cause most people
that listen to this are one or two
person businesses with two or 3,
1, 2 or three coworking spaces.
Like where do people get in their
own way as they try to tell their own
story and then apply their hospitality?
In their business.
Is it, is there like a, a few reoccurring
things that people do and like, no, just,
just skip that bit and get to this bit?
Or you don't need to meditate
for three years on it.
Just like, write a blog
post and get going.
Like, are there, there things
that come up that stop people
adopting these simple philosophies?
Speaker 3: Shall I pick up the story side?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So on.
I think one of the biggest pitfalls is
in, in trying to work out what your story
is and how to implement that is, is not
thinking about who your customer is first.
And.
And how, and not re and thinking
about this as a marketing tool
rather than a mindset shift
in, in everything that you do.
We are really lucky that like, I think.
99% of our clients have already
been familiar with StoryBrand
before they come to us.
But the ones that perhaps have
not been so aware, I think there
is an, a natural tendency because
of like marketing gone by.
There's a natural tendency to think
that we have to talk about our business
and we have to put the business first.
And actually when you
put your customer first.
So long as you understand why you are
doing those things and how you are
making yourself relevant, everything
else just falls into place anyway.
You don't have to sell because you
naturally become the right solution
for what they're looking for.
So I think doing your own messaging
is really tough because you're
too close to it and you have.
Put blood, sweat, and
tears into it yourself.
And you, it's almost impossible for
you to stand in your customer's shoes.
Having somebody else kind of hold a
mirror up to why is that relevant?
Why are you saying that?
Why does that matter is priceless.
And then.
Then how you deliver that, that
should be across everything in, you
know, from the, from a marketing
perspective, you should be able to
detect that message across everything.
And, and often people forget, they stop
talking about the problem that they solve.
They it just kind of.
Sometimes it, people don't
understand how to implement that.
I think that's the biggest challenge is
the how to, what does that look like in
the day to day and in the communication
in the emails that we send out, how
do we continue that on from there?
Sonya, do you want to pick up what
that looks like and challenges with
implementing unreasonable hospitality?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and, well, I think one
you know, one of the biggest challenges
that I think people, and typically
it's leaders of businesses, right, who
read this book and then are like, oh,
great, we're gonna implement that in.
But you know, one of, and you
kind of alluded to this earlier,
Bernie, that you have to empower
your team to be able to make.
On the spot decisions because you
know, will Guara says, you know, it
is, it's, you are, you are creating
an experience that is for individuals.
So you're not trying to create
an experience that you can.
Yes, you want that experience to
be, you know, to be able to be
replicated, but you want to empower
your team to be able to solve those.
Problems individually for customers or,
or, or see something that customer's
going through and tailor it for them.
So, you know, he kind of talks about one
size fits one, and I, I think, you know,
goes back to that culture thing we were
talking about earlier, but also, you know,
your ability for your team to be able to.
View each customer and each experience
that they have as kind of this new thing,
not something that they've done a hundred
times, you know, that day or that week.
And, you know, if you think about the
book, you know, Wil talks about these
kind of touch points that you go through
and how you can elevate each of those.
And you know, one of them is.
You know, if you notice someone lefthand,
they'll change the play settings and
you know, that really makes people
feel something, you know, that there.
These experiences are designed
and not left to chance.
So everything's intentionally
done, and you know, each touch
point is thought through, but it is
thought through in a way that c you
know, your team are empowered to
personalise it for those customers.
So, you know, they're, they're
trusted to make decisions and there's
no rigid structure or scripts.
It's not over controlled.
You know, if you are.
If your team aren't free to act,
they can't deliver the promises
that you make, if that makes sense.
Of course it makes sense.
Sonya, well
Speaker: done.
That was
Speaker 2: a lovely
Speaker: explanation.
See that, that, that's really true.
I've, I've worked in horrible places
where no one knew what they were doing,
and I worked in places with there was
one restaurant I worked in, in London
and we pulled the tips and the manager.
The power hungry manager would be
like, if you guys don't speed up
I'm gonna employ someone else and
everyone would like work a bit harder.
And it, that might make it sound like
the boiler room or something, but
everybody just like had their shit
together so much and it moved so fast.
And sometimes at lunchtime we'd turn the
restaurant three times and the just the.
This and, and every, it was
up to everybody on the floor.
Like the manager would run food and
like write our paychecks, but it was
like kind of up to us to self organise.
I didn't know what self organising was
in those days, but that's what we did.
It was an amazing experience.
One thing before we go, is there, I think
there's, and you can push back on this,
but I, I think people sometimes do things
to, in the hope that it looks like, i'm
gonna give you a cupcake to say thank you.
And it's not really a spontaneous actor.
It's not like that thing with moving the
place, setting for a left-handed person.
It's like a, it's like a gimmick
versus like genuine, you know,
observation and connection.
And how do you make sure
you are not pretending to be
hospitable, that you actually are.
Speaker 3: I, I think that there
is a misunderstanding between.
The staff and the, the behaviour that
matters personally, I think thinking that
Sonya and I are very lucky to travel a
lot and we see lots of different examples
of service can genuinely say the ones
where that we have talked to about.
To other people and that's what we want.
So what we want from Unreasonable
Hospitality is these magical stories
that we will share with other people
that inspire them, that they remember.
' cause we remember stories.
And we want them to refer back to us.
That again, the stories that we've shared
are probably of things that have happened
to us that have either cost nothing
at all, or you know, a couple of quid.
You know, like a coffee or something
like that's happened where someone has
kind of, gone outta their way to help
you or to greet you or to remember
something or to note your situation
that you are in or something like that.
It's almost never about the
stuff that we sit on and, and
I know I think that there is.
Within the coworking industry that there
can be like an a, an emphasis or an
imbalance perhaps on the environment.
Focus on the environment.
And I've got a great coffee machine, I've
got great sofas, I've got, you know, cool
lighting or you know, the, whatever it is.
And.
If you don't have the experience of, you
don't have that hospitality that matches
that, then it's, it's, I think you used
the expression earlier, Bernie, being
soulless that you can have this fantastic
space, but it's not gonna be fantastic.
It's just gonna be a shell.
It's just gonna be things that people
sit on and they will remember the.
Experience that they had perhaps somewhere
else where someone remembered their name,
they remembered their birthday, they
saw that they were drenched that morning
in the rain and like brought them a hot
chocolate or something to warm them up,
or, you know, whatever that is, that's,
they're the moments that get remembered.
Not the fact that there's a, a cool
saver in the corner or whatever it is.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a guy called,
there's a guy called James who in
Manchester who runs Clockwise and he is
on Substack and he, I, I don't know if he
actually does, but I, I would do this too.
He, like, I know you're not supposed
to make people do things, but he
makes all his staff watch at Bear
and reads Anthony Bourdain and
Practise Unreasonable Hospitality.
And I feel if I went in there
which is just a coworking space,
like it would all, all that.
All the real deal will be happening.
Whereas if I go somewhere else, there'd be
the same things happening, but it would be
like a probably ticking off on a clipboard
somewhere to remember they had to do them.
Do you wanna, is there anything you wanna
add before we head for the Hills, Sonya?
Speaker 5: Thanks Bernie.
Yeah, I do actually.
We are running, a two day event
in Central London just outside of
Holburn on the 10th and 11th of June.
And we've got our friend Dr.
JJ Peterson coming over to run
the two day workshop with us.
Day one is around StoryBrand, so we
are gonna be working on brand scripts.
For the attendees and they're gonna leave
with a Brown script at the end of day one.
And then day two we've got an
unreasonable hospitality day.
And you know, Bernie, you've been along
from one of those training sessions.
We delivered at Urban MBA last year
and it was a taster session there.
We've got a full day session, so we
are working through each of those touch
points, looking for some audacious ideas
for people to be able to put into their
business as well as kind of focusing on
the low hanging fruit and ways that they
can elevate each of those experiences.
And both workshops are brilliant
for us to deliver the Unreasonable
Hospitality Day is really exciting.
As far as I'm know, this is the first
one to be delivered in the uk and
certainly the first one with JJ who wrote
the training course with Wil Guera.
And we are really super
excited about delivering this.
It's a fantastic two day experience.
And I think that coworking spaces
are gonna be able to get a lot out
of both days or one of the days.
You know, they could come to
the story brand day or they
could come to the Unreasonable
Hospitality Day gonna be snacks.
Julie, are there gonna be snacks?
Speaker 6: Definitely.
Definitely.
It's about unreasonable
hospitality, isn't it?
Yeah.
There's snacks, there's teas, there's
coffees, there's even a hot lunch.
And I thi I think
actually one you think I,
Speaker 4: A hot lunch could be a
whole variety of like, you know,
like, is that a Greg sausage roll or a
Speaker 6: Oh no, no, this
Speaker 5: come and see.
Speaker 6: Sit down Hot lunch.
Full sit, land hot lunch in
the DeVere restaurant on site.
One of the most valuable things about
doing these workshops is so you get
to sit around the table with half
a dozen other people in your small
group and bounce ideas off of them.
And that's the beauty of, of being in the
room, networking with other people coming
out with, what do you think to this?
Do you think this will work?
And you've got your own little kind of.
Focus group ready made there.
And that's, that's where you see the real.
Kind of magic happen that by the end
of the day end of day one, you leave
with a really clear message about
what you're doing for your business.
And by day the end of day two, you
know how to put that message into
action through what you're delivering
through your customer experience.
So, can't wait to welcome you with that.
Speaker 4: Who, if I run a
business, who are the best people?
Who are the best people from my
business to send to this event?
Is it the finance controller or is it
the, I've run out words, but like who's,
Speaker 6: who's, it's a good question.
Yeah.
I think anyone that has
customer touchpoint.
Is the answer.
And that's, you know, can't all down,
down tools and shut up shop for the day.
But I think it really does help to
have a variety of different people.
We've worked with one business
before where they had a
barista, they had the founder.
They had the ops manager, they
had their HR manager and a couple
of other people in there as well.
So it was quite big coworking
business with multiple sites, so
they had that at their disposal.
But I think if the more of a mix of
different perspectives you have in
there that the more valuable it is
Speaker 5: and actually.
I was gonna say Ben you mentioned,
you know, the financial controller
and I thinking that was a little
bit tongue in cheek, but genuinely
we have had a, we've delivered this
workshop to a team of people where
if you know someone from finance and
someone from Com compliance was there.
And actually it was so fascinating
'cause the experience that they had.
You know, was a very different
experience to the people who were
on the, on the front end of things.
But actually when we went through the
kind of customer journey mapping and
looking at all the touch points for the
customers, the finance side of things
tended to be very you know, kind of a
negative experience for the customer.
And so actually in some ways, having
someone from your finance department.
You know, is absolutely a good place
to start because you can elevate those
negative touch points really well by ha
by including those people from the team.
So I, you know, I think definitely
front of house people, definitely
management, but actually there is
value in having as Julie said, anybody
who has a point with the customer
could add value to the experience
that you have in in your business.
Speaker 4: I agree.
And there's, there's other times
where I've been to events or
workshops and I've come back.
There's like me and one other person and
we've had to like sell the whole idea
of the workshop to 50 people who don't
really know what we're talking about.
They just know we were not
in the building for the day.
So, the more people in there, the better.
Okay.
Where we can put a link in
the show notes to all of that.
Where can we find you folks online?
Speaker 5: You can find us on our
website at www dot story 20 co do uk.
Speaker 4: So folks there's a link in the
show notes to the workshop and we'll also
put that in the London Coworking Assembly
Newsletter and the Coworking Values
podcast newsletter and we'll keep updating
the details there and wherever we are in
the world, folks, be careful out there.
It is a jungle.
Thanks for your time and attention today.
Say goodbye.
Speaker 5: Goodbye.
Speaker 14: And we're back in the room.
So as ever, go to the show notes
and there's links to everything
we spoke about in this podcast and
even more so, there's a link to the
workshop with Sonya, Julie and Dr.
JJ Peterson, which is in June in London.
And if you put in the Code
Coworking values you'll get a mate
rate for attending that workshop.
Honestly, StoryBrand is one of
the best in-person workshops
I've ever done in my life.
And also a lot of you reading
this will know how important that
Unreasonable Hospitality book is to
any business, but especially people
trying to figure out how to make their
co-working space more hospitable.
So also, I'm reading through my list
here and I've really lost my thread.
There is European Coworking Day,
which is on May the sixth, and it's
an annual event this year, 2026.
It's May the sixth.
And that's the opportunity for
you to invite people from your
neighbourhood into the building.
There's a link in the show notes to
a post that says the six things you
can Do, which are really, really easy.
People always overthink it.
But as an industry, we need to
articulate the value of our co-working
spaces or our neighbourhood spaces
or our work clubs, whatever you wanna
call them, to our neighbourhood.
It's a really, really important part
of the role we play in a neighbourhood.
And we'll be talking about that at
the Flexor conference the 12th of May,
which is in London, where there's a
panel which will explore that very same
thing with podcast guests from here.
Last of all, there is the LinkedIn
Coworking group and a lot of stuff we
talk about in here, the link to the
event I just spoke about is in there.
And also people are always posting threads
and other people post their podcasts in
there and it's a great place to connect.
So the more people that take part in
that, as you know, community builders,
the more people that take part in a
community, the more valuable it is.
I'm gonna leave you there.
Wherever you're in the
world, be careful out there.
It is a jungle.