Telsec Business Centres Inc.

I tell my clients that I am not always in the office and that they should not just show up unannounced. Then you get that one client who thinks because they are in the area they can just show up.  I am not an office client at Telsec, I am a virtual office client. I will sometimes use a boardroom or meeting room there, but for the most part my office is at home.

Yesterday an out of town client flew into Toronto via Porter Air (at my recommendation), he figured that since my office was so close to the city centre airport that he could stop by before he went to his primary meeting. When he arrived at my office, the receptionist quickly realized that I was a virtual office client and told him I was not in the office at that time. She then called me on my cell phone and told me someone had showed up unannounced looking for me. She proceeded to tell me that one of the boardrooms was available in half an hour and asked if I wanted to book it.  I told her thank you and called the client telling him I would be at the office in half an hour.  He agreed to go grab a coffee on the fourth floor cafeteria and meet me when I got there.

While this is not normally the procedure, this was a one off situation that the receptionist was able to help me with. I tell my clients that I am not always in the office and not to show up unless we have an appointment. In this case the receptionist remembered that I was not an office client and only a virtual client, because the last time I picked up my mail, I thanked her and complimented on the good job she was doing. Being cordial and positive can sometimes go a long way (but that is a topic for another blog).

This past weekend after visiting a photography client of mine in the west end of Toronto, I headed down to my downtown office space.  While en route I found that some of the downtown roadways were blocked. This is nothing new in Toronto, there are always festivals and events that have some streets blocked off or closed for cultural events or charity fund raisers like the Toronto Marathon. What was unusual about this traffic obstruction was that it was a parade of the un dead. Yes, zombies had taken over the streets of Toronto.

After watching the parade of zombies, I continued on my way to my shared office space. It is not often that I see the other people who share the office with me, as my schedule and theirs are often very different. But when I do see them in the early morning hours at the office, they like me look like zombies at 8 am in the morning. Unlike zombies who feed on brains, we find our way to the kitchen to find fresh brewed coffee that transforms us from zombies to humans that are ready to get down to work. The complimentary coffee is not just good it is amazing. I personally love the Hazelnut Vanilla flavored coffee.

With all the talk about the H1N1 virus (swine flu), many people are concerned what they are going to do if they are too sick to go into the office.  Besides not wanting to go too far from home, many do not want to spread the virus and make others sick. Even if it is not the flu, when you are under the weather it is not actually working that you do not want to do, but it is the commute to get to the office that you are not up for.

Sometimes staying home and not working is not an option, especially if you are the only one working in your office.   Why not consider telecommuting?  Telsec serviced office centres can change how your calls are handled and forward them to your home without your clients knowing you are not working in your Toronto office space. If you need to be able to work on files from your office computer, there are services you can use like GoToMyComputer that allow you access to your office computer from any computer that you have access to. Setting up a service like this is not only beneficial when you are sick, but telecommuting software allows for the ability to work anywhere such as a home office, in the car, at a coffee shop or even while on vacation.  But nothing beats working in your serviced office space Toronto. Continue reading »

Do you travel to you office by green transportation? Have you ever truly wanted to travel to your downtown Toronto office by the ultimate green transportation? While taking public transit is green, bicycling to the office is the truly green way to get to your office.

Some downtown office spaces can offer you, but only Telsec Toronto office space can offer a major bicycle route like the Martin Goodman Trail just outside the front door-a bicycle route like no other, an asphalt mostly off-road trail.  The Martin Goodman Trail is part of the 730 kilometre Waterfront Trail that connects 41 communities from Niagara to Quebec along the Canadian Shores of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. It was named in memory of the former President and Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Star who passed away in 1981. How fitting that Telsec is located in the Toronto Star Building at 1 Yonge Street.

Fall Bicycle Blowout Sale

What? You don’t have a bicycle? Oh, you need a new bicycle.  Saturday, October 17, 2009 – 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.  is the once-a-year, seven-hour sales blitz known as the Bicycle Fall Blowout Sale, presented by the Toronto International Bicycle Show http://www.bicycleshowToronto.com. The Blowout Sale takes place at the Direct Energy Centre, East Annex, Hall F, Door 33. That is the North entrance next to new Ricoh Coliseum (New Hockey Arena) at Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Admission is only $5.00 and the savings are huge. Don’t miss this one day only  year-end clearout  by some of Toronto top bike shops.

Toronto Mail Service

When you open a Toronto mail service account or a virtual office Toronto account that includes a prestigious mailing address in a Downtown Toronto office space building, your mail is held for you or redirected to you on a weekly basis.

If it is convenient to visit the office once or twice a week, keeping up on your mail is easy to keep track of your mail. If you getting a large sum of mail on a weekly basis and have it re directed, it can become quite a chore to sort out.

Too often these days most of our postal mail is junk mail and un-solicited offers to do business. The mail we do want like cheques and  contracts seem to get buried in the pile of mail we recieve. While most of our mail is not of an urgent matter, often times there is mail we want ASAP.

When mail is delivered to Telsec’s Toronto virtual office, the staff sorts it into the appropriate mail slots for each client. Some clients choose to have all mail forwarded to them on a weekly basis, but others prefer to call in and see if they have mail. Then there are the clients who have chosen to use the secretarial services and have their mail categorized and even opened to check for contents. For a small nominal fee, they can have cheques forwarded on a daily basis and the remainder of their mail sent on a weekly basis.

Telsec works with their clients to find office service and secretarial packages that work best for the client. Even when a client wants a special service provided, there are no hidden fees, the price is provided to them up front.

When you call Telsec, ask one of their friendly and professional staff about the many secretarial and administrative services they provide to their clients.

I was recently asked by a friend to attend a meeting with them and to share my technical knowledge. My friend was considering making a substantial investment in a upstart business that claimed they were quite successful  and had  hundreds of potential clients visiting their offices every week.  After seeing their office, I wanted to know how many clients took them seriously.

The office I visited was in the basement of a building whose main floor client was a noisy restaurant with wooden floors. I could hear every foot step from the floor above.  After a 30 minute meeting my client and I emerged from the meeting. The client asked me what was my opinion.  Before I gave my opinion to my client, I asked them what they thought of the space we just had the meeting in. They told me that it was quite distracting to hear the noise above, but the were most disappointed in the fact that we walked into the office space and were not greeted by anyone and we had to shout to announce we were there, because they did not have a  receptionist, but only an empty reception area.

This made me ask the client more questions. If they were that successful or trying to show that they were that professional, would they have not had someone greeting us? Especially knowing that we were coming.

What really made the meeting go sour was the fact they were leeching their internet signal off of another building  tenant and that it was not working. This did not make me confident in recommending my client to invest.

Having a prestigious address in a fully serviced Toronto office space location, tells your clients or investors that you truly mean business.

Since that meeting last week, my client has since upped his business presence and signed up with Telsec at their prestigious 1 Yonge Street address location. He realized that if he wanted to be taken seriously, he too needed a prestigious address and a professional support staff that included a professional receptionist and staff who knew how to make their space look like his own space.

Office Space Toronto

When you are looking for office space in Toronto, too often you forget about what building amenities that are available. One of the things that most people have to deal with every day is lunch. Most Toronto office space for rent locations require you to have to leave the building or go down into an underground food court with no sunlight.

With Telsec Toronto business centres you need not worry about leaving the building to get lunch, nor do you have to go underground. Being in the Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge street, Telsec’s office space clients have access to the Toronto Star cafeteria located on the fourth floor, complete with an amazing view of the Toronto harbour.

The cafeteria in the Toronto office space for rent building not only has a great great view and lots of natural lighting, but it also offers a great selection of foods at good prices. The chefs at the Toronto Star cafeteria work hard to change up the menu on a daily basis and also to offer healthy selections.

Its up to you. Do you want an ok office space and have to go underground to find your lunch, or do you want a Toronto serviced office that is in a building that has a great food selection without having to go underground?