At GWA’s Immersive event in Atlanta, leading operators shared the tactics that are actually driving revenue and retention in their businesses today. If you’re looking to increase profitability while reducing churn, here’s what’s working.
What You Can’t Fix With Training
Most hiring mistakes in this industry start long before a candidate ever sits down for an interview.
Your team will make or break your member experience, and you can’t train someone to genuinely care about people.
John Egan (Director of Operations, Lucid Private Offices) is blunt about it: “You can’t teach people to smile.” He keeps interviews short because first impressions happen in 30 seconds in this business.
Emily Rowell (Partner, Peachtree Offices) takes it further with a practical test: she has candidates sit at the front desk during their interview, then asks her team whether that person fits. Your team knows what good looks like because they live it every day.
Ramon Gonzalez (Co-Founder & CEO, Thrive Coworking) defines culture as “ultimate alignment” and says it starts with one question: “Am I really interested in giving the best experience for the team and members?” When your team feels genuinely cared for, they extend that to members naturally. Simple things like Beer Fridge Fridays create organic community moments you can’t manufacture with programming.
Hire people who already have the warmth and curiosity your members need.
Skills can be taught. Genuine care can’t.
The Revenue Opportunity Most Centers Miss
Here’s what most operators overlook: the real money is made after the tour ends.
Acquiring new members is expensive. Investing in the ones you already have is where the real profit begins.
Lucid Private Offices tracks everything using Firefly to record tours and capture data on what converts (coffee preferences, tour duration, questions asked). Every quarter, they reward the team member with the best onboarding performance with a cruise. This isn’t just about motivation; it’s about signaling that retention matters more than acquisition.
The tactics that drive retention aren’t complicated: activate your space constantly so people leave their offices, stage empty offices with furniture so the space feels alive, host happy hours at nearby bars, and automate anniversary and check-in reminders (Tim Hasse from General Provision does this).
Build systems that keep clients engaged from day one. The members you already have are your most profitable growth channel.
Who Actually Controls Your Deal Flow?
If your marketing budget is going to ads first, you’re already at a disadvantage.
Carly Bedini (VP Operations, IQ Offices) shared that in Canada, 80% of their deals flow through brokers. That’s why IQ Offices is shifting budget away from ads and toward broker-focused initiatives.
Serendipity Labs maintains an 80% Net Promoter Score (anything above 71% is world-class) and focuses on client testimonials because brokers trust proof over promises.
Cid Rhomberg (CEO, Brick House Blue), Simon Moore (COO, Serendipity Labs), and Justin Law (CTO & Co-Founder, Flexspace AI) all emphasized the same point: direct marketing has its place, but broker relationships drive deals. Interestingly, influencer marketing is also working surprisingly well in this B2B space.
Audit your marketing spend. If brokers drive 70-80% of your deals, your budget should reflect that reality.
What AI Should – and Shouldn’t – Do in Your Center
Many centers go wrong with AI by automating the parts of the job that actually need a human.
The best use of automation isn’t replacing your team. It’s freeing them from tedious tasks so they can focus on high-value interactions.
Michael Everts (Strategy Team Lead, Yardi), Courtney Schwartz (Marketing and Events Manager, Fireworks), Luke Wills (Broker Partner, Ivy and Ash Real Estate), and Tim Hasse (Founder, General Provision) landed on a clear principle: automate the tedious, preserve the human.
Use AI for anniversary reminders, cancellation reports, automated check-ins, marketing analysis (Fireworks feeds all their clicks and interactions into ChatGPT to optimize), and sales prospecting (Apollo for data, LinkedIn Sales Navigator for lists). But keep tours, front desk conversations, and community building human.
Here’s why this matters now: as home offices get better and AI makes remote work smoother, the in-person experience at your center needs to be exceptional to justify the commute. Your team can’t deliver that if they’re buried in administrative tasks.
Invest in automation tools that eliminate busywork, then redirect that time toward member experience.
The Advantage Forward-Thinking Operators Are Leaning Into
Three of the biggest names in flexible workspace pointed to the same shift. And it’s one operators can’t afford to ignore.
Michael Berretta (Chief Investment Officer, IWG), Peter Greenspan (Global Head of Real Estate, WeWork), and Peri Demestihas (Head of Real Estate Growth North America, Industrious) all made the same call: it’s time for operators to share performance data openly, the way hotels do.
Why does this matter to you?
Because transparency builds trust with landlords, makes benchmarking possible, and gives enterprise clients the data they need to choose you.
In a maturing industry, reputation and track record separate winners from everyone else.
Operators who lead on transparency will win better landlord partnerships and enterprise deals. Consider what metrics you could share publicly to differentiate your operation.
How to Put This Into Action
The operators succeeding right now aren’t doing anything revolutionary.
They’re executing fundamentals exceptionally well: hiring for culture, obsessing over retention, investing in broker relationships, using technology strategically, and building trust through transparency.
As Peri Demestihas put it, “We are living the best moment in the industry.” The demand is here. The question is whether you’re structured to capture it sustainably.
Pick one of these five areas and improve it this quarter. Then move to the next one.
These takeaways from Immersive Atlanta were summarized by Alex Garza at Alliance Virtual Offices for the GWA, and the wider global coworking community.
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