THE FIVE KEY SECRETS TO A SUCCESSFUL LMN (LOCAL MEMBER NETWORK)
By Ray Lindenberg, Select Office Suites
Starting a Local Area Network (LMN) is actually a lot easier than you’d think. It does take good planning, legwork and dedication, just like the start-up of any organization, but if you have the right vision and elements in place, you can be up-and-running in a jiffy.
It all starts with having a clear understanding of all the tremendous benefits that you can derive by being a united and selfless group of professional OBC executives; making sure you have an eager and committed pool of founding members; and, having a realistic assessment of what you can achieve by coalescing . . . oh, and don’t forget that you have to have fun while you’re LMN-ing, too!
We’re fortunate at the Office Business Center Association of New York (OBCANY) in that all these elements lined up neatly for us, and we’ve been able to reach some pretty lofty heights in the three years of our existence, proudly garnering the OBCAI LMN Of The Year Award for the past two years! The journey has had its inevitable bumps in the road, as expected, but that’s where the properly assessed dedication and selflessness elements of our members kicked in . . . and the rewards have been phenomenal.
Our goals are simple: we want try and make every OBC in our region be as full as possible, as often as possible; we want to make the current and future office-renting public aware and have a clear understanding of the immense advantages that an OBC offers over a traditional empty-box office; and, we want to make sure that we raise the profile and branding of our industry so that the public doesn’t confuse us with those ‘empty-boxers’ which only base their pricing in terms of bare-bones real estate price-per-square-foot calculations. We want to make sure the public compares apples-to-apples when they consider our offerings.
Since OBCs are part of a hospitality industry that offers a whole slew of services, amenities and advantages that a traditional empty-box office can’t be compared to – we want to make sure that office renters in our market know how to value what we offer; understand the distinctions and pricing schedule for all that we offer; and we want to help them think outside the box! Oh . . . and did I mention that you have to have fun while you’re teaming up as LMN members to plan ways to educate the world on the huge cost-savings and other advantages of renting at an OBC?
Here are the 5 key secrets to running a nifty LMN:
1. Love Thy Neighbors. Recognize that your supposed ‘competitors’ – the OBC Operators in your market that you think are taking away your prospects – are actually your biggest assets when it comes to filling your Center. Recognize that you’re all part of a market-driven industry, and that if your neighboring OBCs’ occupancy-level is fuller, there’s a greater chance that you will be more fully occupied too, and as a result, you’ll be able to inch up the fees that you charge because there’ll be less office rental inventory around to satisfy the market demand.
If your neighboring OBCs have a great set-up and formula for keeping their renters happy, and they run their business in a totally professional and ethical way . . . you win! Your whole market and LMN wins. Learn from them. Share with them. Run to LMN with them.
Let your individual innovative juices flow, and in the spirit of friendly competition and professional respect, try and top them! Let your competitiveness drive all of you to new heights. But never stop respecting and appreciating your neighbors. Together with you, your neighboring OBCs hold the key to a successful, high-profile and much-desired office rental alternative to ‘empty-boxers’ in your market – and organizing an LMN allows you to reach the ‘promised land’ of greater occupancy rates and thicker revenues faster.
Unite. Invite entrepreneurialism. Embrace excellently run OBC ‘competitors’ in your market, then coalesce as an LMN to share all the great ideas. Encourage the more resourceful OBCs to reach for the top, and bring the industry, and, you along for the ride. Yes, there’s a Hertz and an Avis – but there’s also a Budget and an Alamo making a heckuvalot of money out there.
Want all your LMN members to succeed? The next best thing (let alone, the quickest way), to fill up your own Office Business Center is by having your neighboring Business Center be full and run excellently, and then benefit from the spill-over market demand effect (that’s a key page out the successful hotel industry playbook, which our own hospitality industry should be emulating), and then learn from those successful OBCs, hopefully sharing winning ideas during periodically scheduled, fun LMN meetings. Love thy neighbors!
2. Love Thy Web Brokers, too. Another key to your LMN’s success, and that of your own Center (and your neighboring OBCs) is the close relationship, respect and appreciation that you have for your Web Brokers. They represent your industry and your Centers globally, and they spend great amounts of time and money to funnel prospects your way.
You can view Web Brokers in two ways: they either stand between you and the prospect; or they are the vital ‘welcoming’ agents that are uniquely positioned to provide you with good leads and revenue opportunities. It is strongly recommended that you view the Web Brokers as the latter – as a prominent and vital cog in your sales and marketing function, and then it’s up to you to truly value and nurture that reality.
Some OBCs in the New York market report that they rely exclusively on Web Brokers for their web-marketed leads, and in some instances almost 100% of their business comes from Web Broker referrals. Regardless of how much you rely on, or value, the efforts of your Web Brokers, they are at the gateway of our industry because of their premier placement on search engines. If for no other reason than because of their relatively superior marketing muscle on the Office Business Center landscape, OBCs need to acknowledge the unique positioning of Web Brokers and manage that special relationship in a positive way so that everyone wins.
In effect, to some degree (sometimes to a very substantial degree), Web Brokers are our marketing arm. They are part of our marketing family (or certainly at least part of the household) because, in the case of many OBCs, they do hold the key to a good part of our rental success. They are often the first and, sometimes, only contact (through email or phone call) that a prospect will deal with before they tour an OBC, as they consider our Centers as a viable office rental solution. And as vital part of your sales, marketing and rental ‘family’, they deserve all the respect and support you can muster, and that any ‘family’ member should receive.
Web Brokers need to win in order for you to win. And the good news is that they are always eager and willing to listen, help, adjust, encourage, confide and cheerlead so that we win, because they figured out the secret long ago, and based their businesses’ fortunes on a mirror image of what OBCs ought to take to heart – that OBCs need to win in order for Web Brokers to win. Work with the Web Brokers. Line up and march down the aisle of a successful and continually-improving referral-to-rental process with them. Give them specifics of what you see as the best way to represent your market and your particular OBCs. They crave that, and they are extremely eager and willing to listen. They want to provide optimum service and help all OBCs win, so that they can win and max out on their efforts and revenue potential.
Yes, it’s their job to keep track of your market and individual OBC pricing schedules – but it’s your industry and livelihood that they’re representing to some (or to a great) degree. Make it your job and responsibility to continually update them with current, forthright pricing and availabilities data of your Center so that they can market and sell your OBCs more effectively and successfully. And if they fall behind on accurately relaying your offerings, go ahead and make their day . . . pick up the phone or email them to help them get them back on target with your accurate availabilities and pricing profile. They’re in business to make money just like you, and to do so, they depend on a clear and accurate picture of your inventory and pricing.
You really want to make their day? Ask them to help you as you get your LMN off the ground. They would love nothing more than to see you succeed with your own vital, dynamic and professionally-run LMN (they win bigger that way too). Occasionally invite them to your meetings or pipe them in via conference call. Honor and respect them. OBCANY recently had a ‘Salute To Web Brokers’ Day, gave them our ideas and recommendations at OBCANY – Web Broker Partnership Summit, then took them to dinner and drinks afterwards. They deserved this recognition, and a lot more. You should see how enthusiastic and willing they are to satisfy our referral process requirements these days, now that they are clearer as to our needs, that we appreciate them, and that we respect them as our vital Partners with a capital ‘P’ in the referral and rental process.
At OBCANY, we were fortunate and smart enough to bring our outstanding Web Broker Partner and good friend Roger Voralia into the early stages of our development as an LMN, and the rewards have been immense. We would not be experiencing our many successes as an LMN today, were it not for the nurturing, support and friendship that Roger has extended our LMN these past two years. I know of no Web Broker who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to lend his or her hand and support in order for an LMN to get established (just like Roger did), or who wouldn’t do practically anything so that each LMN and OBC wins. That’s a great part of what drives them . . . The spirit of win-win. Love thy Web Brokers!
3. Think Small . . . (in terms of size and ground-breaking efforts). Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions to overcome when starting an LMN is the false urgency to think that you have to have a lot of members, schedule plenty of meetings, and spend excessive time, effort and money to keep the organization viable and running right. That errant anticipation is a good way to paralyze your effort before it even gets of the ground.
Much more important than how big or how active your LMN becomes is that you even have an LMN up-and-running, to begin with. Make a statement to the world: to your local flesh-and-blood brokers, to the Web Brokers, to the local rental market, to your Chamber of Commerce and other local pro-business groups, to the OBCAI and OBC industry in general, and to local vendors and service providers (who, by the way, can help you finance your efforts in various ways), that your Association exists as an organized, dynamic and successful entity – that you’re open for business as a LMN and are a fledgling force in your business community. Like we saw in Field Of Dreams: ‘Build It, And They Will Come’. Or Better yet, do what Nike tells us to do: ‘Just Do It’!
But don’t trip yourself up by thinking you have to be big to be successful. Small is beautiful. Try the 5 By 5 rule for fledgling organizations: 5 core members (minimum) and 5 meetings a year. That’s all you really need to do to start an LMN – and if it’s more, then fine, but don’t undermine your potential successes by thinking too grandiosely for your own good.
Our successful organization, the OBCANY, which now boasts over 40 OBCs and over a million square feet of rentable office space in the New York Metropolitan area, started a little over two years ago, with 5 people exchanging ideas in the back of a pub, keeping one eye open for the door in case we were lucky enough to have a 6th person come through it.
The fact that you have an Association established and operating far outweighs any delay in getting the perfect, big, elaborate, ambitious organization that you might hope for, off the ground. If the group is a good one, and it’s meant to grow . . . it’ll grow. You get what you give. Build on little victories, get some momentum going, and in no time you’ll have a viable and vital Association that the world will take note of.
Spread the officer-ships around. Admire and respect your colleagues for heeding the call and having the courage, initiative and determination to take the plunge and start an LMN (did somebody say “Love Thy Neighbor”?). Maybe they came from 30-40 miles away, and took an hour to get there. Yes – all organizations require sacrifices, but the rewards are immeasurable.
Would you and/or other OBCs in your advertising market be willing to drive an hour back-and-forth, and then spend 90 minutes (maximum) exchanging ideas and figuring out ways to lift the industry, if it resulted in perhaps tens of thousands of dollars in additional income for your Center over the next few years? If the answer is yes, don’t wait another minute. Run and start organizing your own LMN. You’re losing valuable revenue and rental opportunities by delaying your start-up, or not having one in your market. But begin by thinking small (organizationally).
4. … And Then Think Big (when it comes to goals and ideas). While it’s true to think small in terms of size and meetings, so you’re up-and-running effectively, it’s also valuable, necessary and healthy to think big, in terms of objectives and innovations.
List the goals you want to achieve as an organization. Early on in the game, put together a Charter that will serve as the road map for your success as an Association. Start with the fun and easy exercise of collectively drafting a Mission Statement that all members feel comfortable with, and perhaps all will contribute to. That’s also a great way to validate that you’re doing something worthwhile with quality people. Have that Mission Statement be one of the first few articles of your Charter so that it truly serves as a statement of your mission and your vision as a united force.
If you need help putting together a Charter or Mission Statement, scout one out on the internet. Maybe you don’t need to re-invent the wheel after all. Examples already abound on the World Wide Web that can serve as a pathway for your Association’s success. You can reach out to the OBCAI for help, or you’re welcome to contact our organization, OBCANY, for a sample and ideas of some foundational documents that your LMN can build on. The quicker you start your LMN, the quicker you will harvest all the marketing and financial benefits. But it all starts with lining up behind powerful, written goals and principles that you agree with and feel good about.
Make decisions democratically and honor consensuses, and if you have a particular member better suited for a specific function of your LMN, delegate those tasks to that member and support him or her in that effort. Maybe it’s a good IT-oriented person who is well-suited to get your website or blog up-and-running; or a member who is well-connected with a local merchant or commerce-promotion Association who can help liaison with it to put your LMN on your region’s business map; or maybe it’s someone in your group who’s been in the OBC business for awhile, and who has a great relationship with many flesh-and-blood brokers and could spearhead your broker community outreaches; or a good organizer who can lead your meetings, record its minutes, and can serve as its Secretary. Identify the strengths and resourcefulness of your all LMN members and play to them.
Perhaps your biggest decision will be who will head your group for the first year or two as President, Chairperson or whatever leadership title and function that you settle on. Make sure it is a fair, insightful, talented, experienced and respected member of your group, who is well-suited to shape the debates and direction of your Association, and who can subtly nudge your organization’s agenda to line up with its goals and mission statement. In that respect, at OBCANY, we hit the jackpot with Paul Carter of Office Links as our George Washington.
And when you design your goals and objectives, make sure that you have a strong stance on ethical standards. Ultimately, your organization will be legitimized, respected, judged and get the oxygen that it needs to survive and thrive, by how true and dedicated it is to the principles that your Association and its members vow to practice. Everybody loves a winner, and nothing defines a winner better than an individual or organization that is honorable, pledges to maintain the highest standards of integrity, and has a platform for reviewing the practices and principles of its members – even if complaints rarely, if ever, are registered.
Just like the quick and easy establishment of an LMN outweighs the delay in putting the perfect Association together, the existence of a simple, clearly-stated and written set of principles and ethics that: current and potential OBC Operators and LMN members, Web Brokers, flesh and blood brokers, vendors, and the local business community can examine and count on, outweighs any reluctance to create this risky target for possible complaint registering and recourse.
In fact, an accessible statement of a Code Of Effects as a handout to members and/or as a website inclusion, similar to the one OBCANY has, can actually prevent breaches of ethics. It helps formulate a clear target that we as an organization and as individual OBC Operators need to shoot for, honor and protect. It keeps us on track, and validates our participation in an organization and effort that is worthwhile. It keeps us, as well as other potential members, on our toes and coming back for more. Base your existence as an LMN on strict ethical standards, and it will help legitimize and grow your organization quicker.
Police your own group and invite others to test your members’ practices and integrity. OBCs are a superior option to traditional real estate offerings as an office rental alternative because we are more in touch with the clients than the ‘empty-boxers’. We are first and foremost a hospitality industry -- not a real estate industry. Hospitality, by definition, infers a closeness and comfort level that is steeped in honesty, principles, ethics and the implicit opportunity to test those standards.
Have high goals and expectations when you design and manage your LMN. All certifiable successes began with great, ambitious, goals. The sky’s the limit as far as what you can achieve as a united group if you are chock-full of powerful, dynamic ideas . . . especially if you and the world are clear that they are honorable. Then the fun really begins . . .
5. And Don’t Forget To Have Fun! If you want to have an organization that succeeds and grows, so that you can reap the most benefits for your efforts, make sure you make time for, and figure out, ways to make your meetings and dealings as fun as possible. Make members want to remain as members, come back for more meetings, and to spread the word to other prospective OBC Operators and service provider/vendor members so that they too will want to attend meetings and join your LMN.
Ultimately, you will get the biggest bang for your buck if you enjoy steady growth (slow is okay). If you can grow 20% membership in the first year (even if it’s just 5 members becoming 6), you’ve had a great year. Every additional fanny that fills a chair at your meeting could mean the difference between a nice little group, and a fabulously dynamic and successful organization that makes a big splash in your business community, helps brand and raise the profile of the OBC industry in your market faster, and could translate to significant rentals down the road, or even immediately. That’s the potential, power and effect that just one additional member can bring to your Association.
Every new member could be a Knight in Shining Armor (or similarly could recruit another talented, new member) who has the know-how, experience, contacts and/or resources to catapult your organization to new heights . . . so that everybody wins. It’s the consistency of attendance and determination of your individual members that will drive your success, and then it’s a steady growth and increase in membership that will sustain it.
But you have to get the established members to want to come back for more, and for first-time guest attendees at your meetings to want to join, and they will decide to do so based on:
A) how organized and worthwhile your meetings are (and Association is); and B) how fun, enjoyable and enriching their experience at the meeting was - - and for some people (and often times, people who are critical to your LMN’s success) B is far more important than A.
Right or wrong, some members feel that if they are going to sacrifice part of their workday or evening to be a member of a fledgling organization (sometimes as much as an hour each way to get to a meeting), they need to feel compelled and excited to do so. They want that meeting to also be fun and breezy, as well as informative and interesting. And the meetings mustn’t be long – 90 minutes, tops, including casual networking time.
At OBCANY, since our get-togethers are conducted in the evenings, we make it a point to go overboard with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a server at every meeting which we usually hold the third Thursday of every month from 6:00 to 7:30, rotating to a different member’s Center each session so we can visually review, share (and yes . . . pirate) good ideas, and be more apt to refer prospects to each other’s Center once we notice that our neighbors are running a healthy and happy office environment.
But the ‘fun’ function of your Association needn’t be so elaborate or costly. A cooler or small keg of beer should do very nicely, if your meetings are after regular business hours. Or just some coffee and donuts would work fine if you meet during regular work hours. It’s the gesture that counts – that while you mean business at the meeting, you don’t lose sight of the extremely critical social and enjoyment aspects of coming together to produce great dynamic results as a bona fide, organized, professional Association.
Everybody wants to be part of a fun, worthwhile organization, where the members respect each other, and enjoy each other’s company. Good ideas and a better spirit of cooperation and initiative flourish in a fun environment. In many cases, it’s the element of joy that keeps them coming back (as long as you don’t overdo it), and it serves as a good calling card to attract additional members. After 8-10 grueling hours of work, who wants to go to another business-only setting? A relaxed, friendly and fun environment is definitely what you should shoot for.
Perhaps more important is the fact that there’s no rule that says that good decisions always require a serious setting. Some of the most effective and successful decisions, as well as best networking opportunities, that organizations and companies will ever experience occur at casual, relaxed and enjoyable settings. That’s why so many business people join country clubs and attend corporate-sponsored golf outings. Having fun just makes good sense and good business. Maybe go out for drinks after the LMN meeting, if that’s a better option.
Enjoyment is the lifeblood of any organization’s existence and is a critical piece to maintaining a viable effort that people will want to associate with, while attracting other, new members. So sit back, brainstorm, get excited about your new hobby of starting and supporting an LMN which can also bring you great financial rewards, let the good times (as well as the powerful ideas) flow, enjoy each other’s company, and while you’re at it, make it a point to have fun!
Now that you’ve had a good primer on how to start and sustain a successful LMN . . . go start one! There are too many rental opportunities and too much revenue at stake, and all that is needed is a strong, organized presence through an LMN in your market to raise the profile and brand your industry so that office seekers more readily consider the superior offerings that OBCs provide over a traditional empty-box office. The author of this report, Ray Lindenberg, is the Co-Founder of the successful and award-winning LMN, OBCANY (Office Business Center Association of New York), where he serves as its Chairman of its Ethics & Standards Committee, and last year produced the OBCANY Web Brokers Partnership Summit in New York City that was attended by 60 OBC Operators, Web Brokers and OBC industry executives from around the world. Ray is the Rental Manager at the Summit At Madison Square Park and can be reached for correspondence at info@obcany.com. |
