Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Tracking prospects

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Subject: Re: Tracking prospects
Marcia Zuckerman <marciazuckerman [at] mac.com>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
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--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Regarding tracking prospects, we have a comprehensive spreadsheet of anyone 
who’s contacted us.  If someone comes to two meetings, or knows someone in the 
group and is clearly serious, we designate them an “active prospective,” and 
assign them an associate or equity member as a “buddy.”   The job of the buddy, 
from our most recent meeting minutes, is

● Point person for questions
● Become an advocate for any special needs for that prospective (remote access, 
Malden
meetings, affordability, baby-sitting)
● Helping those with no concept of cohousing to get to square one, which can be 
pointing
people to websites or talking
● Judging how quickly or slowly people are likely to move and helping them at 
that speed,
also communicating that speed to the membership committee
● Helping people with their application (e.g. don’t sweat it, it’s 
substantially there to help
applicants think)
● Explaining timing: urgency, timeline for buying. But also, where we are in 
the process for
context (e.g. this is a busy time)
● A marketing role, to some extent: accelerating people toward an associate 
application
● Just plain keeping track of people, making sure they don’t drift off
● Reporting back to the group if people decide to leave, and why. For that 
matter, if they
are going to the “back burner.”

Hope that’s not more than you wanted to hear.

Marcia Zuckerman
Bay State Commons Cohousing, Malden, MA [in permitting process]