Have any of you found ways to get the sign-up rates that employees or volunteers get when they meet and sign up a new person, to equal or exceed the rates that you as an owner of the business get when you meet and sign up a new member? For example, if you sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours on average, and other people sign up 1 in every 4 people on average, have you found ways to get other people to sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours? Either training, or confidence, or expectations, or scripts, or sales consultants, or giving them profit-sharing, or a title as business owner? (I’ve tried all of those and haven’t found any to have an extreme difference except for the first 3, and even then I’d like to find something better.)
Would be interested in what you share.
Thanks,
Alex
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Alex Linsker
Collective Agency’s Community Organizer / Proprietor
Signing up 50% of the people who you show around is astounding. I would say 20-40% sign up rate is more ‘normal’… So perhaps you’re the one who should do the training and share what your secret is!
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On Tuesday, August 5, 2014 11:38:07 PM UTC+2, Alex Linsker wrote:
Have any of you found ways to get the sign-up rates that employees or volunteers get when they meet and sign up a new person, to equal or exceed the rates that you as an owner of the business get when you meet and sign up a new member? For example, if you sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours on average, and other people sign up 1 in every 4 people on average, have you found ways to get other people to sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours? Either training, or confidence, or expectations, or scripts, or sales consultants, or giving them profit-sharing, or a title as business owner? (I’ve tried all of those and haven’t found any to have an extreme difference except for the first 3, and even then I’d like to find something better.)
Would be interested in what you share.
Thanks,
Alex
Alex Linsker
Collective Agency’s Community Organizer / Proprietor
It’s tough to say what would fix this without knowing what’s NOT happening.
Are people besides you just not following through? Do they explain coworking differently? Do they ask more/less questions than you? Are people not signing up for any specific reasons?
I’m not surprised that extrinsic incentives haven’t worked. And frankly, I don’t think “sales training” works for community building - in fact, I’ve seen it do quite the opposite. Scripts, too, are counterintuitively unhelpful. We’ve had our new team members shadow existing team members and learn how to give a tour that way…but it’s almost impossible to give someone else’s tour in a way that doesn’t feel forced.
One of our current team members actually said to us about 6-8 weeks in, “guys, I think I just gave my best tour ever!”
I asked her what was different, and she said, “I finally have enough of my own stories that I can explain how this place works with MY stories, instead of yours. It just feels more natural that way.”
-Alex
p.s. I don’t think %'s are relevant to compare. We give lots of tours to people who we’re pretty sure aren’t going to join from the moment they sign up to take a tour based on the comments they leave. We’ve found that it’s better for them to come in and realize it’s not what they want on their own…mostly because it also leaves room for people to come in THINKING they want one thing (like a private office) and realizing that what they REALLY want is a coworking community.
On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 6:23 AM, Tabby Lorentz [email protected] wrote:
Signing up 50% of the people who you show around is astounding. I would say 20-40% sign up rate is more ‘normal’… So perhaps you’re the one who should do the training and share what your secret is!
On Tuesday, August 5, 2014 11:38:07 PM UTC+2, Alex Linsker wrote:
Have any of you found ways to get the sign-up rates that employees or volunteers get when they meet and sign up a new person, to equal or exceed the rates that you as an owner of the business get when you meet and sign up a new member? For example, if you sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours on average, and other people sign up 1 in every 4 people on average, have you found ways to get other people to sign up 1 in every 2 people who tours? Either training, or confidence, or expectations, or scripts, or sales consultants, or giving them profit-sharing, or a title as business owner? (I’ve tried all of those and haven’t found any to have an extreme difference except for the first 3, and even then I’d like to find something better.)
Would be interested in what you share.
Thanks,
Alex
Alex Linsker
Collective Agency’s Community Organizer / Proprietor