Location, location, location! We’ve said it’s important so many times!
While a good office/business location is often emphasized and often even preached, have you really thought about the way your business location has affected the bottom line of your small business? One of our largest office space competitors, Regus, did some research on the topic of location that we thought we should share with our readers. Yes, Regus wants our location. But Telsec is not going to give up the number one address on Canada’s most famous street, One Yonge Street, where many businesses want to be located. So, Regus surveyed 19,000 business owners and found that more than 80% of those who responded stated that “customer retention rates can be increased by greater physical proximity to customers.” Almost as many respondents (78%) also said that “physical closeness to customers also helps solve customer problems and improve customer satisfaction levels.” If your customers are seeing a business address that is […]
Canada Posts Business Solutions
For the most part, we forget about the post office because letter mail has been mostly replaced by e-mail. But there is still some things that small business needs from Canada Post. There is still a need for outbound marketing and product shipments. Depending on what you are marketing and who your target audience is, Canada Post may have a direct-mailing solution for you. Last year, Telsec did a targeted mailing to the condo buildings nearby and got a good response from entrepreneurs in those condos who were looking for a virtual office address (that was not their home address). We had a number of calls from the flyer we put out. Canada Post can take care of most of your small business shipping needs – everything from sending out letter mail and invoices, to sending out product shipments to customers. A large portion of our office space tenants receive […]
International Mail Services Versus a Post Office Box
Whether you are in the USA or somewhere else around the world and you are doing business in Toronto, you most likely want a Toronto address for your Canadian mail. Postal Boxes may sound like an easy and secure way to have your business mail delivered, but are they? Let’s talk about the logistics of a P.O. Box first, before we go into the potential loss of business by using one. Unless you are a frequent flyer to Toronto or have someone picking up your Canadian mail as your Canadian representative, if a package or important documents are being sent using another courier such as UPS or FedEx, those packages cannot be delivered to a P.O. Box. Canada Post will hold your mail indefinitely, but is not set up to forward it to you. What good is it having a local mailing address if you are not getting your mail […]
How to Gain Trust for Your Home-Based Business
As we mentioned in our previous blog “How to Gain Trust for Your E-commerce Business,” trust, in general, is the key to the success of your business. You not only have to build and maintain trust with your clients, customers and vendors, you need to have the trust of employees and freelancers. Some say that if you lose that trust, you may just as well pack up your business and go home. But what if your business is a home-based business? How do you gain trust? As business owners and marketers, the assumptions you make about your target customers and the purchasing motivations you think they may have, will have a powerful affect on the health of your business. As a small business owner, your reputation means everything and you cannot afford to damage your personal brand. But trust is also very fragile. If you lose it, it’s very difficult, […]
Tips for first-time business owners
Not every new young entrepreneur has the luxury of having a mentor to help guide him or her on their first business venture. So finding guidance is up to them and it usually requires a great deal of research. Even if a new entrepreneur can find a mentor, he or she still needs to do research and learn about the market they are about to enter. It is not uncommon for first time entrepreneurs to want to jump at every opportunity that passes in front of them. They start off with one business idea and along comes a distraction, or they think they can handle more than one business idea at the same time. The problem is that they lose focus on their first business and their productivity eventually suffers. Choosing the right business is important. But choosing a business to start because it is the current trending idea, could […]
How to Gain Trust for Your E-Commerce Business
Far too often, small business owners jump to the conclusion that the reason for a lost sale is their price point. What they often fail to realize is that the online customer abandons the cart because there is a trust issue with the site. Unless you have a long-term relationship with a customer or you also run a brick-and-mortar store that the customer has seen or been in, it can sometimes be hard to build that trust for a customer to make a purchase. You have to remember that mega online sites like Amazon did not gain the trust of customers the first day they opened. They had to have a plan to build trust. Unlike a physical location, customers who come to your online store do not have the experience of touching or feeling what they may be purchasing. It is not only your brand that customers need to […]
Why a Business Centre is the Best Solution for Opening a Canadian Branch Office
Opening a branch office or other corporate or legal Canadian business type in Canada is much like starting your business all over again! You have an expansion plan; researched the best business “entity” for your business and decided upon whether to have a virtual office from your home or rent office space, warehouse or storefront. Then you have to set up a legal entity to do business under and to carry out setting up the business. All of these activities will require a Canadian address. Without a Canadian address, you are in bureaucratic ‘quicksand.’ The Virtual Office Options There is not much to consider when deciding whether a P.O. Box is appropriate over a virtual address because a P.O. Box is not a legal address for the purposes of incorporation or almost any legal business entity that a U.S.-based or foreign company can use. A Business Centre’s virtual office and office space services provide your business […]
Summer hours: Do they work for your company and your employees?
Most companies want to keep employees happy during the summer months, without losing productive hours from those same employees. One solution that many companies have found is offering workers the flexibility of having an early finish on Fridays. Workers either come in an hour early or stay an hour later 4 days a week, so they can work a 4-hour day on Fridays. The concept of having flexible summer hours sounds great in theory, but it does not work for every business model. For companies who are heavily contacted during regular business hours for sales and customer service calls, closing the office early on a Friday afternoon might not be an option. However, as much as you warn customers of early closings on Fridays, they still expect to have their calls answered when the need help at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon. So what is the solution? We have a […]
Types of entrepreneurs: What type are you?
Seniorpreneurs, Youngpreneurs, Minipreneurs, Mompreneur, Innerpreneur, Extrapreneur, Intrapreneur and Wantepreneur. What kind of entrepreneur best describes you? At Telsec Business Centres, we have a wide variety of professionals, including small businesses, large business, branches and entrepreneurs that either rent office space from us or have virtual offices. Someone asked us to define an entrepreneur, but in trying to define what one is, we found that there seems to be various types of entrepreneurs. Each type of entrepreneur has its own definition, so we decided to share the various types of entrepreneurs rather than create one generic definition. Let’s start off with Innerpreneur. These types of entrepreneurs are people who find their inspiration within themselves and start their businesses as a way to achieve their personal growth, rather than that of the company or corporation. Innerpreneurs are driven by a strong purpose and find their personal fulfillment and satisfaction through their work. […]
Are Business Centres the Office Workplaces of the Future?
The future of the workplace is more work and less place, especially given the impact of new technologies and the changing demands of a new generation of workers. Even with some employees working full-time or part-time at home or in other remote locations, there still needs to be an office for the business. One trend in corporate offices today is to have fewer and smaller individual workspaces and a greater portion of the workspace dedicated to interactive and collaborative uses. Companies are changing the functions of the workplace more toward intense interaction spaces. Office space is being optimized for all types of collaboration, including space to bring remote workers into the office on a schedule. Even having remote workers come into the office a few times a month for meetings and team-building exercises requires a flexible workspace that can be changed or reconfigured when needed. Traditional office space with cubicles […]
How to use Offshore Resources
While there is an abundance of outsourcing companies and freelancers in North America, sometimes, for more economical quality work, you may find your small business considering offshore contractors to fill your needs. When choosing to do business offshore, you need to consider the public relations implications. Some of your customers may find out that you use offshore resources, and this may in turn cause them to reconsider doing business with you. Whether it is having your website designed and built overseas, or having your call centre located in places like the Philippines, Jamaica or India, the cost savings for you and the customers you are serving can be great. Choosing the right provider in the right country is important, because some of the traditional offshore providers are no longer the least expensive option – and could even end up costing you more than what it would in local or other […]
Reasons why your business growth has plateaued – and how to fix that
Do you remember the story about the little train that could: “I know I Can, I know I Can.” Well, many entrepreneurs think that positive attitude is what will fuel the growth of their small business. Unfortunately, it is not not a lack of positive thinking that stalls business growth; it is not having the right business mindset to look within to change things for the better. The first step to continuing growth is to see and admit that your small business has reached a growth plateau – and the earlier the better. The second step is not to make uninformed decisions – such as throwing more money behind advertising, aggressive marketing and promotions. Also, avoid trying to pour more cash or investments into your business until you know what is really causing your plateau. You might not need to make a big spend or to invest more money. You […]
Tips to Fill Your Seminar or Training Session
Your seminar is planned and you have a training room booked, now you just have to fill the seats and get people to attend. When you are setting out to create your first training session, your task is to get an audience and gather interest in what you are promoting or training. How are you going to fill your seminar or training session? Here are some tips to help you succeed in getting people to attend. Promote on announcement and Meetup sites! There are plenty of event announcement websites and most of them are free. Social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus have places to post and promote your event. Besides social media event places, there are sites such as Meetup where you can crowd-source and promote your seminar to people who share the common interest of your training session. Mention it in your newsletter! If you have […]
Is a Virtual Company the Best Option for Your Business?
There are very few people who will tell you that they enjoy the morning commute to their office and the late afternoon or evening commute home, but what is the alternative? What about an office commute that’s as short as the walk from your bedroom to your home office? The idea of having a virtual office for a “solopreneur” is not a new one. For years entrepreneurs who wanted to work from home or on the road have used virtual office solutions to maintain a professional business address. Virtual office providers are not just a prestigious address and mail-drop location; they are, in fact, a professional image provider! When the professional live receptionist at your virtual office provider answers your phone number (as your company name), the person who is calling knows they have reached your office. Depending on the nature of the call, the receptionist can transfer the call […]
Business Centres: Watch out for Hidden Costs!
The concept of service offices and business centres is great for small business owners who do not want the capital expense costs of opening an office in traditional raw office space. However, some serviced offices come with hidden costs that business owners do not expect. When renting an all-inclusive office space, make sure that you know in advance what is and what is not included before you sign the rental agreement. Unless you know all the facts, you may sign up for a serviced office space, believing it to be at a fixed price, only to find that there are hidden costs added. What are the hidden charges in a serviced office? Here are some essential questions to ask the business centre provider before signing up for a serviced office package. Are there set-up costs or charges? You need to ask about any set-up costs that might be incurred when […]
Why Open a Branch Office in Toronto, Canada?
In the digital age, the number of opportunities available to businesses is greater than ever because ubiquitous connectivity means the world is at your fingertips. So your customers can be almost anywhere! The only barrier to opportunities becoming realities is your ability to communicate and compete in new markets. Whether it be a large or small business or technology start-up, there comes a time when every business must expand its market in order to maintain growth and continue to gain market share. If you’re a local business delivering local services, you’re looking to grow into other cities or nationwide. But if your business is already reaching its full potential nationally, then businesses will generally look to expand internationally. Why international expansion should start in Canada For U.S.-based companies, countries like India, China and Asia with large populations and huge perceived markets are often the first choices for international expansion. The more logical country […]
Suggestions on managing the virtual office revolution
In a previous blog Ways grow your Small Business quickly, we mentioned that one of the fastest ways to grow your business is by hiring virtual office staffers that you do not need to create office space for. To some companies this might be easy; but others have the fear of losing the ability to track employee progress. The trick to making it work is by having the right tools and constant communications with the remote team. Implementing a remote-workforce team allows you to source talent from any location, meaning you have access to the smartest, most capable workforce in your industry. This means that not everyone on your team needs to live within driving distance of your main office. In most cases, you will want a new hire to spend their first weeks at your office for training and meet the rest of your team in person. This not […]
Ways to grow your small business quickly
Growing your small business is not as easy as you think – and it is not as easy as just throwing money back into it. Most often the way your business needs to grow is by adding team members to manage the operations and service your customers. Housing all your employees in one place is no longer necessary in business. These days the jobs done by your staff can be done remotely. A great deal of small business owners avoid the thought of managing a virtualized workforce out of fear of losing the ability to track employee workflow and progress. But with the right guidelines and tools, that doesn’t have to be a concern. As a small business owner, you just need to establish your company’s core values and have clear and frequent communications with staffers. It’s easy to streamline workflow between onsite and remote employees. So how does it […]
How to find the perfect office space
In some of our previous blogs like “Your Office Space Toronto Location is Key to Your Success” we talked about the importance of where you locate your office and the much-touted “location, location, location.” But there is much more to finding the perfect office space for your business – you have to find somewhere that is ideal for you and your employees too. You have to consider that your office space not only affects your day-to-day operations and your staff morale, but also your brand image. So besides location, what are the other things that you need to consider? Price is a very important factor to most businesses when choosing a new office, especially their first office. If they spend too little, they either end up with an office they are not happy with, or they may find themselves moving out after a few months. A business that spends too […]
How to do business in Canada: Choosing a business structure
In the post expanding your service based business into Canada, we discussed some considerations you should examine before you begin to move a service-based business into Canada. In this post, I will explain the different types of legal entities that can be used to do business “with Canada” and “in Canada.” The legal structures open to your business are many, so taking the time to choose the best one for your needs is an important part of the process for a successful expansion. One of the best references for information about doing business in or with Canada is found on the Canada Trade Commission site. You’ll find information on everything from Visa and immigration to investing in Canada. A U.S. or other foreign-based company has many options to choose from when selecting a business structure in which to carry on business in Canada. The entities available to do business include: […]