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Office Interiors and Designs
An average American spends 41 hours at work weekly. That’s an awful lot of time and much more than their European counterparts. So they do need a well planned offices to help them workl. Planning or no planning these two office designs caught my fancy over the net.
This picture is picked up from http://www.officedesigngallery.com/. Though it’s not my style or an idea of an office; creativity is the first thing that comes to mind when I see this office. You can almost visualize the art work gong on here.
This office design at http://mocoloco.com/ takes the prize as far as radical designs are concerned
Though these are pictures of very unconventional offices they do shake us out of our stupor of dreams of the steel and chrome offices.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
The Flexible Office Solution
In today’s blog post I’d like to cover a success story that an entrepreneur told me at a meet in Los Angeles. The names and places are changed to protect her privacy.
Carol is a successful entrepreneur selling niche jewelry designs, patterns and information over the internet. She is also a work from home mom. Her work is creative and does not require her to be at one city or office. Carol’s career allows her to remain with her spouse during his job changes and projects. In fact Carol says that frequent changes of places during the first few years of marriage made her more creative as she had to deal with a lot of new influences and handle them.
Jewelry design was a hobby which changed into a profession. But the road to success was a steep climb.
“The client’s said ‘we like your designs…they are good’ But they never came back. I knew my designs were good. It bugged me that the big companies did not deal with me. Small companies did not give me the price that I felt that I deserved.
It was then that I realized that importance of a professional look. I needed a flexible office. I hired a virtual office company to take my calls. I rented their upmarket Manhattan offices for my meetings with clients. I made my presentations at those offices. Within months my business changed. I started getting bulk design orders from large companies at very good rates.
I learnt it the hard way that professionalism matters and makes a huge difference. The virtual office made me look like a well established professional designer and inspired confidence in clients”.
It doesn’t stop at that. Recently, I was on the west coast for a holiday. All my calls were attended by the live virtual receptionist and forwarded to me later during the day. Suddenly, I needed to meet a client who was willing to travel. I rang up my virtual office services provider and they instantly set up an office for me. It was an Aha moment for me because I realized that unconsciously I had made a correct decision in hiring a company that operated nationally and was customer centric….”
Times have really changed and technology has truly revolutionized our lives.
And Carol changed my perspective of virtual offices. It was not about costs or convenience but about a professional business outlook that made success possible. Of course, Carol was good at her work but lots of us are; even then some of us fail to make a mark.
The simplicity of virtual offices and its operations have yet to make a very big impact, but some like Carol do dare to think differently. Carol’s flexible office solution is nothing but a virtual office.
- She got a cost effective office at the prime location.
- She made no large capital investment
- Her virtual office was practically a complete office with the facilities for all offices
- It was a national operator
- It was customer centric
Think about it.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Own a Business? Save Commute Time, Save Money
Are you thinking of starting your own business, but concerned about the cost? A smart move that can save entrepreneurs money using the latest technology is working virtually-from the comfort of your home. When you think of starting your own home based business, the first thing that come to your mind will be saving time and money while spending lots of free time with your family and the flexibility of making your own schedule.
The rising cost of gas and environmental affect of commuting encouraged most people to start their own business. Along with it, modern amenities such as Internet, email, fax and phone also allows you to work from anywhere you want. With these improved technologies, working from home and telecommuting is becoming a reality in many people’s lives.
Though commuting is often a necessity, it takes many hours that could be used effectively. Therefore, many workers are attracted towards telecommuting as it saves both time and money. Telecommuting is becoming increasingly popular as workers try to reduce commuting time. With telecommuting, you can save car and fuel expenses as well as have a few extra hours per week that would have been spent driving on the road.
With gas price being so expensive, it is no surprise that you will save big bucks in this area starting your own business. It is a great way to stay green while improving efficiency and productivity in your work field.
According to a data released by U.S. Census Bureau, “Americans spend more than 100 hours commuting to work each year.” Working from home will not only save your time and money, but also help in increasing productivity. As a business owner, you will have more flexibility staying with your family; you have more hours in a day to get the work done.
Telecommuting saves time, money and fuel. It is an arrangement in which you can work from home or from anywhere or wherever you can use your mobile telecommunication technology. All you need to start your own business is a computer, a phone and some network connection. You can also give your business a wider perspective by creating a web presence.
Working from home means no need to purchase office space, no need to maintain the office building, no utilities cost, no commuting expenses. This means saving money, which you can spend in increasing productivity in your business.
With ever increasing household expenses and everyday bills, many families are struggling to make their dream into reality. If you are not commuting to your work everyday, you could save several hundred dollars each month just by having a home business.
Again, a home based business allows one or both parents to be at home to care their children while still earning income. This not only saves you financially, but also gives you a peace of mind to be with your children.
Starting your business from home in this era of cost cutting can save you a great amount of money with minimizing commuting expenses.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Office Design
Design occupies an important role in attracting the customers to your office. An efficient office design takes into account lots of factors like layouts, furnishings, office accessories and technology to deliver an excellent work setting for both the employees and customers. These factors make an impact on the productivity and also responsible for your business’s success.
Whether you are setting a home/small office or corporate office, thoughtful designing is very important. With appropriate office design, you can enhance the efficiency and workflow of your office with minimum disruption, hence leading to higher productivity.
Designing a home office
When it comes to home office design, you have to be very flexible and ready for any kind of alteration. The priority here is convenience, not the aesthetics.
Internet, phone, fax and email has helped millions of working men and women to telecommute-that is working from the comfort of their own home-working virtually.
The major difference in designing a home office is that you can incorporate personal touches and can be more creative while designing which you otherwise wouldn’t include in a traditional office setting.
While designing a home office, the main aim is not only to make the place look good but it should also be comfortable and serve practically. It involves the selection of right kind of color, right set of furniture and the right decoration to enhance the look of that small space- that means the design should reflect your own personality and you enjoy being there.
Designing a corporate office
Corporate office design should reflect the corporation’s goals and dynamism. Clients and visitors must be able to sense that this company like its interior and furnishings means business.
Actually how a corporate office is designed can have a great influence on the efficiency and productivity of workers working inside the office. Each office differs in design from the other based on their unique requirements, budget and location.
With companies continuing to invest in technology, there is less demand for new employees and their space is also designed accordingly to accommodate the technological infrastructure.
Designing a serviced office
In the ever-changing business environment and dynamic market, a need to move, expand and cut costs is a basic requirement and serviced offices are the best option.
If you want to impress your clients while working at a remote location and for those who like a design-oriented and entrepreneurial atmosphere, it could not be better than a serviced office.
Serviced offices provide users with a complete, professional office environment and all the facilities and services necessary to operate a business for a monthly fee. These include reception and secretarial services, telephone services, office accessories, furniture, internet access etc.
While designing a serviced office, you must be clear in your mind what a serviced office means. All furniture needs to be modular and can be configured to suit your client’s needs.
A well-designed office is one of the cost-effective and easiest ways to retain workers and make them more productive. If the physical environment is not conducive, then employees won’t work well.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Virtual Office Services
To be taken literally, a virtual office has the address of an office, the telephone numbers and even the meeting/conference rooms of an office except for one fact: you are not physically at the conference room. As a matter of fact, you can be virtually anywhere and still operate in a virtual office setting. You can work from home, plan to enter a new market or could simply do with a high-profile business address – the choice is yours.
A virtual office is a unique service that can enhance any kind of business, entrepreneur or professional. It provides many customized services to maximize your time, minimize your cost and help you achieve your goal within a short period. Because you only pay for the services you seek, you do not have pay extra – no waste, no initial expenses and no investment required.
A virtual office provides all of the modern office functionalities that people can use anywhere, anytime and most importantly at a fraction of the cost of a traditional office. It includes IP unified communications, unified messaging, online fax, remote receptionist with live phone answering and web 2.0 applications. All these services can be configured, managed and utilized from a single web interface, allowing setup and operation of a remote office in a top business market, without physically being there.
Services a virtual office generally provides include:
- Business address- Virtual offices provide all benefits of a prime office location without the need for your presence. If you ever wish to relocate, you don’t have to change your business address, because this business address can be accessed from anywhere.
- Mail notification.
- Dedicated phone line.
- Message transfer via SMS or e-mail.
- Meeting/conferencing facilities.
- With a virtual office call forwarding system, you will never miss a call, whether you are in your home office or on the road.
- It gives small businesses a big presence.
- Using the latest in telecommunication technology and business expertise, virtual office provides complete flexibility and a truly personalized service to its customers.
- Telephone answering services. For those in need of supportive business services such as answering service, a virtual office is the optimal solution.
- A virtual office provides a full range of telephone services with free additional non-geographical local and national numbers as well as free phone and premium numbers.
- Depending on the level of your subscription, the service is available 24 hours a day and any call can be transferred or diverted to anywhere in the world.
Typically, the users of virtual office services would be those who:
- Seek a low-risk alternative to renting a conventional office,
- Migrate from using a post office box,
- See a business address within an expensive location for corporate image,
- Test a new product or service idea,
- Seek a proxy for collection of mail and parcels.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Beverly Hills United Virtual Office
You see Brad Pitt eating at the local sandwich shop and Megan Fox around the corner, where else can you be besides the great city of Beverly Hills. Besides celebrities and extravagant shops, what else can this extraordinary city offer a business minded person like yourself? Well for one thing, the economy does not phase the clientele here as much as other parts of Southern California. With the median income for a household in Beverly Hills being around $82,669 and the median income for a family is around $110,040 with the men’s being around $72,004 versus the women’s $46,217. These numbers are in the upper-middle class and can afford to spend a little in this city so why not take your business here?
Now of course having an office in Beverly Hills can really change your image and says a lot of how your business is coming along but doing so can take a big chunk out of your pockets. In 2007 Coldwell Banker listed Beverly Hills as the most expensive housing market for the second year in a row in the United States. Now that means that renting an office space here can be a little bit on the pricey side. But what makes a Beverly Hills office so special? You still have to drive to the office through the brutal LA traffic, waste money on gas, and spend bundles on supplies, rent, receptionists, and more. So why not have the luxuries of an office at the comfort of your own home. United Virtual Offices can offer the amenities of a Beverly Hills office while you relax at home. Now what exactly can United Virtual Offices offer you?
A Beverly Hills United Virtual Office offers:
- World-class business address
- Professional phone receptionist
- Call forwarding to any location
- Beverly Hills telephone number
- Access to office space and conference room’s
- Voicemails and faxes delivered to you/as per your instruction
Now you can go mingle with Halle Berry at the hottest new restaurant on Rodeo Drive without missing an important business call. With United Virtual Offices you can not only save money but more importantly time. Go enjoy the Beverly Hills landmarks with the family instead of being cooped up in the office all day. With a Beverly Hills Virtual Office you can be at both places at once.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Success Story
Lost in starting your own business? Where can you get the help that you need and more importantly it has to be a reliable source because now a days it seems like everyone “knows†what he or she is doing but in reality they are just as lost as you are. You need help from someone who has gone through the process and is already an established success. While I was looking up QuickBooks online I came across SmallBusiness.Intuit.com. This is a great resource for your new business ideas. They offer a QuickBooks Simple Start to organize your finances, an Intuit Online Payroll to save time on calculating the proper payroll for your employees and an Intuit Websites for creating a user friendly website geared towards your customers. This site has been proven to work for many different people with many different backgrounds. It offers so many success stories that if it works for all these people, why not you? One of the most unique business successes with these resources came from a 13 year old boy who created a pencil bug topper. He was on ABC’s Nightline and is on Forbes Top 10 List of Role Models 18 & Under. Instead of looking up software for the different parts of your business, just come to this site and it has it all from marketing tools to payroll software. This can be your one stop to turning your creative idea into your own success business. Why not submit your own success story? Check it out http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
San Diego Virtual Office
Enjoy the clean air and sunny skies over in the great city of San Diego. You can always see people tanning by the beach or soaking in the rich history which is the city of San Diego. Besides the great climate, people, and atmosphere what can this great city offer a business man/woman like yourself? Well economy wise they have much to offer. Forbes ranked San Diego the fifth wealthiest city in the United States and although tourism is a big part of the economy in the city, the leader in the economy belongs to manufacturing. There is a lot to San Diegos economy which is composed of agriculture, biotechnology/bio sciences, computer sciences, electronics manufacturing, defense-related manufacturing, financial and business services, ship-repair and construction, software development, telecommunications, and tourism. With so much composing the economy, take your pick and run with it.
Being the fifth wealthiest city in America means that to live or work there you must have deep pockets and in our current state of the economy, a few of us can say we can afford to spend that much money. So you want to have an office in San Diego but don’t want to spend the office money, what can you do? Well the solution is simple, United Virtual Offices. Not only is it economically friendly, but also environmentally friendly. No more paying thousands of dollars on rent, equipment, and supplies. No more waking up early and driving in traffic, wasting gas, and polluting the air. With United Virtual Offices, you can stay at home and have your own friendly receptionist forward you the calls, mail, and anything else you need. Don’t waste gas and rack up unwanted miles on your car. Let’s save the environment and think green, especially in a beautiful city like San Diego. What can this United Virtual Office offer you?
Well a San Diego United Virtual Offices offers:
- World-class business address
- Professional phone receptionist
- Call forwarding to any location
- San Diego telephone number
- Access to office space and conference rooms
- Voicemails and faxes delivered to you/as per your instruction
Want that extra day off to hit the beach with your family? Think it’s time to save some gas money? Want to save the environment? The answer is right here. Let’s make you the big shot you are while working at home. Be at both places at the same time with the San Diego Virtual Office.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Let’s crunch those numbers
Accounting can be a tough and more so tedious job to do. From crunching numbers all day to knowing the ins and outs of assets, expenses, and so on; it can get incredibly confusing and dull very quickly. Now you always have the option to hire someone to do it for you but then you run into the problem of money and are they trustworthy. With important documents such as your financial statements, trust is a key issue and you cannot trust anyone more than yourself. So instead of trying to remember your accountings courses from college or paying someone and worrying about their work, why not do it yourself. The old saying goes, “If you want something done right, do it yourself†and with numia.biz you can do it yourself with ease. I came across this program called Numia at Numia.biz. It gives you video tutorials and accounting basics so you can get quick tips and the general strategies behind managing your financial statements. Now once you sign up for their FREE services, they offer many FREE reports “which would help you to track your business onlineâ€. Basically saying that it is an easy way to follow your progress in which you can customize your reports. This FREE service also is an easy way to setup “Customer, Vendor, Company preferences and Bank accounts.†This truly is one of the best accounting services out there and did I mention that it’s FREE. Also since it is a online service, you can use it anywhere that provides an internet connection. This is one of the truly helpful resources for your small businesses. Check it out Numia.Biz
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Las Vegas Virtual Office
You hear slot machines spinning, see cocktail waitresses, and smell the prime rib dinner for $5.99; where else could you possibly be except for Las Vegas. Sin City has more to offer you than their world famous casinos and great shows. It is also one of the most populated cities in the United States, 28th to be exact. Now this does not mean that all 600,000 people are at the blackjack tables so this is a great opportunity to meet potential clients and networking partners. Although most of Las Vegas economy comes from gambling and tourism, other parts of the economy has been booming of late because of the growth of residential population. Having an office in Las Vegas can not only get you a broader network but can also enhance your image as an entrepreneur.
An office in Las Vegas can cause you to dig deep in your pockets. From your personal receptionist to the office supplies, it can cost you an arm and a leg, and in Las Vegas you’re going to need your arms and legs. Now instead of spending too much on a fancy office which you can barely afford, why not try a virtual office with United Virtual Offices. Let’s say you’re at home with your family but you also need to be in the office for an important phone call, what can you do? With United Virtual Offices, your very own receptionist will transfer your important calls, mail or anything you need over to your own private line where ever you might be. Need a nice meeting room for your future clients or business partners? No problem because with United Virtual Offices we can provide you with one at one of our distinct luxurious offices.
What else can a Las Vegas United Virtual Offices offer you?
- World-class business address
- Professional phone receptionist
- Call forwarding to any location
- Las Vegas telephone number
- Access to office space and conference rooms
- Voicemails and faxes delivered to you/as per your instruction
Now you can be at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas or snowboarding in Big Bear without missing a step. Be at both places at the same time with United Virtual Offices in Las Vegas.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +