No, friend, no. That’s not how any of this works.

It used to be that simply being a coworking space was a big deal. It was enough to garner press, attention and a lot of curiosity.

Not so anymore.

As coworking spaces are being built faster than anyone can keep track of, it is essential that you understand who you are, who you serve and how you serve them—and then communicate that across your platform and channels.

Or you will get left behind.

I heard from a coworking pioneer the other day who visited a new space in town and asked who they were interested in attracting to their space and community. The newbie’s response: “Literally anyone willing to pay.”

No, friend, no.

That’s not how any of this works.

And as coworking prepares for exponential growth, having a vanilla space with vanilla features and customers milling about in a sea of vanilla energy is simply not going to get it done.

Everyone is coming and you need to be ready.

I can say this with confidence because I’ve felt the growing pains myself.

When I first started teaching coworking space operators about content marketing, the general vibe was, “What’s that?” I had a lot of educating to do and I was basically a niche of one.

These days, content marketing in coworking is a given. An expectation. And a whole lot of marketers of all types have moved into coworking, seeing the industry’s growth potential.

I started feeling a bit squished in my niche of one.

I needed to pivot.

So I spent months doing some soul searching about how I can play to my strengths and unfair advantages to best serve the global coworking community and make sure coworking remains a human-first movement-slash-industry. My goal was to find the open water I could push into and become a niche of one again.

I found it in brand community.

The distinction is so subtle you probably didn’t notice it. I’ve been talking about brand for 10-plus years and I’ve been deeply committed to the community aspect of coworking for as long as I’ve known about coworking. I’ve also built brand communities of my own around The Lab and Coworking Convos.

The re-positioning from content strategist to brand community coach was a way to get above all the marketing noise and focus on the high-level strategy and teaching I love. Focusing my energy on brand community lets me do what I do best with content creation and education, as well as community engagement and brand building.

It’s so obvious that I’m surprised I didn’t make the shift earlier, but here we are.

My intention is to be the brand community resource and leader in coworking and beyond. My audacious goal is to bring brand community and what I’ve learned in coworking to readers, audiences and stages around the world.

I’m telling you all this to encourage you to dig deeper into your vision; to find those things that truly separate you from all the other coworking spaces; to feel into your community and find ways to better serve and support them—in a way that only you can.

What’s your unfair advantage? How can you best harness and direct the energy and potential in your space and community? What’s your superpower and how can you share it with your extended community and the world? What’s that vision that scares the shit out of you?

Go do that.

The world needs what you have.