“We’re having a really hard time getting traction with our coworking space.

Coworking is just so new here, and people don’t really understand it.”

If I had a nickel for every time I head this, well damn, I’d have a LOT of nickels. 

Everywhere in the world, even in places where coworking appears to be “taking off”, I watch as people run themselves ragged trying to explain why coworking is different, valuable, and here to stay.

Because nothing inspires community participation like an exasperated community manager begging for acceptance, right? Ha. 😉

One self-described tummler named Raghuveer from Hyderabad, India wrote me with the following:

“In Hyderabad, every space likes to call itself a coworking space and all they do is provide desks and people work in relative isolation! Our space wants to break that barrier!

However, people here mistake coworking to any other shared office or executive space and ask for fancy interiors, private cabins and air conditioning.”

This probably sounds familiar.

Wrapped up in just a few sentences you’ll find two very common traps that people like Raghuveer – who has the BEST of intentions – tend to get caught in.

Trap #1 – Trying to describe coworking by what it’s not.

At the risk of sounding all “back in my day…”, remember that back in my day, we didn’t have any other coworking spaces to point to as examples.

In 2006, literally nobody knew what coworking was, anywhere in the world. It had never been in a newspaper or magazine.

It definitely had never been in the New York Times. In fact, by my best research, this article (originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer but I can’t find that link) was one of the first mainstream media mention of coworking outside of San Francisco where the whole thing began.

I had no experience talking to the press (as you can probably tell from my candid admission to talking to an invisible cat and my choice to wear pants), but one thing I knew was not to anchor someone’s understanding of coworking in what it wasn’t.

Even when somebody else brings up executive suites, I was (and still am) careful not to make the comparison.

ESCAPE PLAN!

Instead, I focus on the core problem that coworking solves, which is loneliness and isolation.

From the article:

“Three months working at my house, I was talking to the cat, and I don’t even have a cat. I was going crazy without the socializing.”

Having no cat with which to chat, he moved to a nearby java joint, laptop in tow.  It was vaguely satisfying in that he encountered humanoids, but: “It’s like they were silhouettes. I had people around me, but I didn’t communicate with them, so it was filling half of the need. But it was the bottom half.” 

Not only that, but …  “I always felt an obligation to the coffee shop. I was taking up precious space,” Mr. Hillman said. “I was definitely drinking more coffee than I should have, so I wasn’t sleeping.”

I didn’t describe the solution. I described the feelings that I had when I was all alone and working from coffee shops.

And when you describe those feelings, anybody who has had those same feelings instantly “gets it.”

Which brings me to the second trap that people get caught in.

Trap #2 – Setting out to “convert” people.

I’m going to tell you the secret to my success: I hate convincing people, so I don’t do it.

I hate the FEELING that comes with trying to convince somebody that I’m right. And I hate the FEELING that I get when somebody sets out to convince me of something.

Which is good, because the people who you’re trying to “convince” aren’t your members. Most likely, they will never become members.

So you can stop worrying about them, right now. Full stop.

When you try to convince the people who “don’t get it”, even if you DO figure out the magical words that make them say “you’re right”, you’ve initiated an extremely fragile relationship.

Do they actually “get it,” or did they just concede to your relentlessness? How can you tell the difference?

That’s right, you can’t.

ESCAPE PLAN!

Instead of relentlessly trying to convert the unconvertable, focus on finding even just a handful of people who do get it by using the escape plan for trap #1.

Encourage those people. Support them. Promote their successes that come from choosing coworking over isolation.

Candidly, this takes time. But the payoff compounds.

As people see the kinds of successes that come from working together, more people will come around on their own.

You’ll have new feelings to describe to them, and a whole range of feelings that come from having people around you that actually make your work day better.

When you focus on everybody and anybody, you’ll run out of steam before you ever get the traction you’re looking for.

But if you focus on finding a a few who feel some of the same things you have, you’ll find that you never have to “convince” somebody ever again.