If you have a Community Manager on your team that you'd like to develop and retain, or you're about to hire a CM that you'd like to train without re-inventing the wheel, this program is for you.

Your team drives the success of your business. They're often your sales force as well as your best member retention tool. Investing in them = investing in your bottom line.

#1 Way you under-serve your team

You plan to train your team beyond the basics but then life gets in the way

I know how this goes because it's happened to me many times.

You hire a new Community Manager. You think they might finally be THE ONE. You commit to training them on all aspects of the business. You promise yourself that you will not miss a weekly meeting. You'll spend an entire month in the office having her shadow you...you'll take them under your wing and make sure they deeply understands every aspect of the business.

And then....you have a fire to fight in your other business...you get distracted negotiating an important contract, you have family matters to attend to...

As long as your manager is making it through the basics of holding down the fort, you get distracted and let them figure the rest out on their own.

#2 Way you under-serve your team

You sell the opportunity to be a part of our business and the empowerment that comes with the role... 

...but you don't have the systems in place to provide an organized on-ramp and you don't really have the capacity for ongoing development...whether you have just one location or multiple locations.

I've been HERE before too! We commit to developing our team beyond the basics. We will be a business mentor. When our CM leaves us, they will be able to conquer the world. We will PERSONALLY equip them to solve world hunger. 

But we're entrepreneurs. We love new projects, growing the business and bright, shiny objects. We do not love sitting side by side behind the front desk with our team members for weeks getting into endless details and strategic discussions that go beyond what they need to know to get through the day and close tours.

So we fail at this commitment. We fail our team.

Don't beat yourself up. Just allow yourself to be realistic. Take the training and development off of your plate and make sure your team has access to training and development platform and peer community that does not succumb to....Squirrel!

#3 Way you under-serve your team

You're just not a teacher

Training and developing a team requires a specific skillset. In big companies, there are entire departments devoted to this. You wear many hats as an entrepreneur. Some you're good at, some you're not. Developing training materials for your team and spending time on ongoing development may not be your strength and frankly, you may just not really like it. 

Don't beat yourself up. But also don't leave a big gap that will impact your bottom line. Well-trained, engaged Community Managers will sell more memberships and retain more members.

1. Content by experience level and role competency

Graduated learning across the 5 core competencies of the Coworking Community Manager role

 The training modules are organized by experience level and by the 5 aspects of the Community Manager role:

1. Community Building
2. Operations
3. Sales/Marketing
4. Finance
5. Leadership

We have designed the stages of the Community Manager Success Path as:

• Newly Minted:
  • He/She is new to the industry, might be juggling many new "hats." Might be new to marketing, handling social media, giving tours, and using industry-specific technology.
  • This is likely not the CM's first job, but they are totally new to many of the aspects of the role and need a lot of support at  this stage.
• Rising Star:
  • He/She understands the industry enough to explain the basics to another person;
  • Can complete tasks by referencing training documentation and SOPs;
  • Needs some daily email/Slack/shadow support as they work through new tasks
  • Understands the basic marketing and operational aspects of the role;
  • Is getting to know the members
  • Can host simple member events and is learning how to prioritize their daily work.
• Independent Rockstar: 
  • They have a firm grasp on the industry
  • Can handle all typical tasks independently.
  • The space owner or GM can go out of town for a few days and expect him/her to run the show.
  • They might still need to check in with the owner as new situations arise that he/she hasn't handled yet.
  • They're developing more confidence with members, going beyond basic interactions and creating connections among members.
  • They have developed a deeper understanding for how local business marketing works and drives leads.
  • They take ownership over weekly/monthly local marketing goals and content marketing. This includes social media, blog posts and newsletters.
  • They also take charge of weekly meetings, develop agendas creates reports to review.
  • They can also read and understand each line item of the coworking P&L (your call whether or not to give them access to yours).
• Senior Community Manager: 
  • They have a deep understanding of the industry and the model - from the financial model to operations, to community building to personal leadership.
  • They can represent the company externally when the owner is not available.
  • They are very competent in all content marketing and local business marketing planning and execution (excluding PPC).
  • They can plan/execute/ evaluate the success/ROI of events.
  • They can manage subs and contractors to handle special projects.
  • They can manage more junior team members at the same location and can support a team member.
  • They can evaluate a monthly P&L and prepare comments for a weekly leadership team meeting.
  • They can be responsible for all variable expenses on the P&L.
• General Manager:
  • He/She has full P&L responsibility at a location level; can manage marketing vendors at the location level including more strategic aspects such as website updates.
  • Partners with regional GM or owner to conduct annual planning for marketing, sales, operations, facilities.
  • Is responsible for setting annual location-level goals, managing weekly/monthly reporting and training team members to execute against the goals.
  • Can manage the location's event business - marketing, proposals, staffing, billing.
  • Can manage all team members at a location including staffing needs and hiring/firing decisions (with review/approval of leadership team/owner).
  • Manages on-boarding and training of all location-level team members. Is not directly involved in community building, but evaluates team's proficiency and supports their development.
• Regional Manager:
  • Has GM responsibilities across multiple locations.