Office Reception Desks Are Great Investments

When it comes to finding the best and least expensive furniture for your business, you can't go wrong with looking at the different kinds of office reception desks that are available. Since you have employees that will be working at a desk, it is important for you to provide them with a working space that is not only pleasing to your customers but ergonomically friendly for your employees as well. Since you can't afford to throw away money on workstations that are not built to last or that can't handle your employees' multiple roles, you need to make sure that you purchase the best office reception desks for your company.
It is important for you to spend a little time learning about the products that are available so you can find the best deals. Since there are a number of suppliers who are competing for your business, the supplier you decide to purchase from needs to be far superior to the rest. When you are ready to purchase office reception desks, you need to keep in mind three things: your employees' health, your costs, and the quality. These three things go hand in hand with how well your business runs.
There are millions of people working in office jobs where they have to sit at a desk for countless hours each day. Sitting for long hours poses health issues that can affect your employees and keep them from working as efficiently as they should. This in turn can result in lost productivity, lower profits, and poor customer service. If you want your employees to look forward to coming to work without fear of being uncomfortable or developing some serious ailment, you need to take an active interest in their working conditions.
The desk that they sit at plays a very big factor in how well your business is run. Even though it may not be possible for you to reduce their hours, you can make sure that their office reception desks are ergonomically friendly. Make sure that they are designed in such a way so that your workers don't have to struggle, bend, or move in unnatural ways to reach items on their desks.
Choose workstations that are equipped to properly support your employees' bodies. Make sure the chairs are cushioned, adjustable, and provide ample back support. If you really want to improve your worker's health, you may want to learn more about standing workstations. This will allow your workers to keep their weight down, reduce the risk of developing poor circulation, and improve their moods throughout their shifts.
If you are not quite ready to use standing workstations, consider a good alternative such as adjustable office reception desks. You gain the same benefits and your workers have more control to make adjustments to increase their comfort throughout the day. This will improve the work conditions in your business while increasing productivity and profitability.

Have a Team That Loves Working With You

Today's topic is about creating a team that loves working with you. When you first start your business, you may have started from home-in a spare bedroom or a little office, and you're just by yourself. That's good in the beginning because you may be on a shoestring budget, but after a while as you get more and more successful, there's just so much more to do, in terms of customer service, or in terms of doing things you don't know how to do. If you want to grow in your business, you must begin hiring other people, whether it's on a part-time basis of a virtual team member or a full-time person.
We now have a team of about 14 full-time employees. And what I've realized over the years is that your success in your business is only as good as your team. If you want to continually succeed and keep growing by leaps and bounds, you must take care of your team and hire people who are super talented, who love working with you and who will do anything to stay at the company.
I believe that we are on our way to creating that kind of team. I would like to share with you some of the best practices that I've put together over the last three years that we've had full-time people working in our office with us, so here are my six tips. They may seem very simple, but hopefully you'll find them helpful.
1. You must see yourselves as peers. Instead of seeing yourself as the big boss and that everybody else is beneath you, see yourselves as peers all on the same level.
You have your own unique strengths, skills, talents and abilities, but it is only a small piece of the puzzle. You must surround yourself with people who are really good at things that you're not good at. When you honor them for their skills and their talents and their abilities and you see yourselves as peers working on the same mission together, everybody gets along and everybody loves working together.
2. If at all possible, have your team members only work on what they love to do and that they're uniquely brilliant at. Like I mentioned above, you are really, really good at things that you're really, really good at. Surround yourself with people who are exceptional at doing other things. When you have people who work only on stuff they love to do and they're brilliant at, they will love coming to work. It's like they'll come to work and say, "I can't believe I get paid to do this!" When you have a whole team that is happy and thrilled to work with you because they're doing only what they love, you have a super productive team, and there's no drama because everybody is so happy.
3. This is going to sound simple, but say 'please' and say 'thank you'. They're not your servants. They are your peers and they are human beings, and everybody wants to feel significant, so say please, say thank you every time you ask for something.
4. Treat them like friends and family. We have a private chef cater lunch every day, Monday through Thursday, and we eat together as a family at this long dining room table in our office. We go around the room. It's like breaking bread. We share this delicious, healthy meal together and we go around the room each sharing something that's new and good every day. It really deepens the relationships. It's one of my favorite parts of the day.
5. Respect their opinion and request their input. Team members don't like to stay in the dark. They don't want to be like mushrooms. They want to be part of the big picture. Share with them when you come back from a mastermind group or when you've read a book or you've gone to a seminar, come back and share with them what you learned. Share with them the bigger vision of what you're working on. They like to be involved and remember that every single person on your team has opinions and has things that they're really good at. Request their input and honor their opinion because it matters. It really matters if you want to create a yummy team.
6. Lastly, have fun together. It's really important that your office be a place of abundance and beauty and respect for everyone there. The more you can have fun together during hours or off hours, the closer you will become as a team. A really close team can create anything. Really, they can create results that astound others.
See what you can do too - even if your team is all virtual. Fly everybody in and do something really fun together because when you do all of these things, it creates a team that is invincible and can do anything.
Your Client Attraction Assignment
Think about what you can do to create a space in your company where people love to work with you and they want to stay and tell others about you.

Three Top Catering Options for a Wedding

Three of the most popular catering choices for a wedding include the finger buffet, the hot buffet and the sit down meal. Consider the type of reception you are having in trying to decide what type of meal would be best to serve your guests.

A finger buffet is a no-fuss catering option that works very well for many different venues. When selecting finger foods, offer more than one menu choice if you are able to. The place where you are holding the reception may offer you three or four menu choices, but if you are catering for a large group, such as 100 or more, you may wish to provide your guests with more options.

If you are offered a choice of what menu you would like, mixing and matching foods is always a good idea. You can peruse the menu that is provided to you and from there, select the finger food that would be most appetizing for your guests. This will provide everyone in attendance with a larger selection of foods from which to enjoy.

A venue that does not allow you to have a say in the choices for the finger buffet may not be the optimum choice for your reception. It is your wedding and you are paying for it so you want to be able to make the decisions related to it.

A hot buffet is another catering option for a wedding that is popular but will cost you more than the finger buffet. This choice would be a good daytime catering choice as well as an evening one. It would suit any couple on their wedding day because it offers something for everyone.

You can include on the hot buffet anything that suits your fancy and is within your price range. Sweet and sour chicken, lasagna, shepherd's pie or chilli make excellent choices for the main dishes.

The hot buffet would not be complete without an assortment of side dishes. These dishes compliment whatever main dish is the centerpiece for the meal. Some options for side dishes include rice, potatoes, French fries and vegetables (such as pea, carrots and corn). You may also wish to have rolls, biscuits or garlic bread.

In the case of a hot buffet, the guests can get up from their tables and serve themselves. Service time is relatively fast when people have the option of picking out their own food.

The sit down meal is a popular option for wedding catering but not as popular as it was a decade ago. This is a traditional means of serving a meal at a wedding but the potential for errors is great (slow service, cold food) and it can be rather dull.

If you have your heart set on a sit down meal, allow guests to choose their own seats and do not go crazy with the choices for foods. One or two choices are best, except for those who have dietary restrictions to think about.

Increase Your Net Profit

Confused about why your gross profit is high but your net profit is low?
When the ladies get them they look real. But when guys get spray tans they look like Magda's twin brother from the movie "There's Something About Mary." Spray tans last about 7 to 12 days. So if you are into this stuff, you have to go every 1 to 2 weeks. That's a lot of tanning, and that's a recurring fixed expense for you. Maybe that's where all of your money goes.
Do you ever ask yourself: Where does all of the money go? Why do I feel like I have no money?
You are killing it in your business, right? You are bringing in the business. You think you are making good money. But every month when you look at your net profit then at your business bank account, there isn't much cash in there.
Every business owner spends money in 2 areas:
• The money you spend to produce/provide a service or product, which is costs of goods sold.
• The money you spend to keep your business up and running, which is called overhead.
Stay with me here. You really need to understand this. It's so key to getting a handle on your business money. You will have more clarity. You will feel more in control. You could go to the moon! Seriously.
OK, here is an example...
Let's say you are an event planner and you are planning a business conference for Apple. Your fee is $100,000. You will supply and pay for event production, flowers, tables, chairs, catering, and staff. You plan on all of the expenses costing $70,000. So you plan on making $30,000, or 30% profit. The $30,000 is called your gross profit.
Gross profit = Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold
But the event ends up costing you $85,000. You are over budget. So your gross profit is only $15,000.
You also have overhead to run your business. You have to pay for rent, health insurance, your employee, and telephones for your office. This costs $8000 every month.
Net profit = Gross profit - overhead.
So in this case, your net profit is $15,000 - $8000 = $7000. That's it, you made just $7,000 off of $100,000 in sales! Oy vey. We gotta get this number up.
If we annualize this, your net profit for the year would be $84,000. But the thing is, you left your corporate job where you were making $80,000. So you are basically making the same amount of money. Yes, you have more autonomy, have your own company, and have more flexibility. But you are really making the same amount of money.
So something has to change if you want to increase your net profit. You have 3 choices:
• Raise your prices
• Lower the costs to produce the event such as your service or product, or stay on budget.
• Lower your overhead.
It's that simple. You make the decision. Then run with it. Just not to the tanning salon.

How It Can Give Your Business A Competitive Edge

Hoshin Kanri is one of the many immensely useful management techniques that Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers have given to the corporate world. You don't have to have a large manufacturing company in order to use this technique. Companies of varying sizes and different industries have been using it to get a competitive edge.
The term Hoshin means 'setting an objective' and Kanri means 'management'. Therefore, the two terms when used together loosely mean "the management of objectives or direction". Most people take these terms to mean 'planning'. However, this is more than just planning and it is extremely essential for a company's success.
If you decide to adopt this management technique then you will have to
- Plan your strategy over a three-to-five-year period in order to move your company in a particular direction.
- Devise activities that will help you achieve your long term objective.
- Establish a variety of monitoring processes in order to ensure that you are on track to achieve the long term objective. These monitoring processes will also help you understand if the plan needs to be changed before it becomes too late and resources are wasted.
- Identify an annual plan that helps you achieve short term business goals.
- Give people specific responsibilities to ensure that they meet their individual goals. Each individual goal then helps the company achieve its overall target.
- Put in place a good system of communication so that all people in the organization understand clearly what is expected of them.
What makes this style of management different from conventional planning is that it comprises of both long term and short term goals. Employees have a clear understanding of how their individual performance can help the company succeed in the marketplace. As is to be expected, this has a very beneficial effect on productivity and morale. This is also a very good way of identifying various opportunities for training.
If you are looking for a fail safe way of improving your business then you should adopt various Lean management techniques including Hoshin planning. You will then be able to identify various business opportunities and take good advantage of them. Not only will your productivity increase but wastage will also reduce. You'll need to start by getting the right training, both for management and employees so that they can make good use of this management style. You'll see a dramatic improvement in business within the first year itself.

How To Be A Headhunter

Headhunters, or Executive Recruiters have the toughest job of all recruiting positions. Typically, executive recruiters are paid on commission. If they don't make a placement, they don't get paid. They work without pay until a candidate is hired. There's nothing like a little stress to keep activity in high gear. Headhunters are motivated to continually perfect phrases, strategies, and skill sets. The faster they recruit, the bigger their reward. With quality comes quantity.
There's an art to controlling the placement process and it begins with memorizing the steps both candidate and employer go through before closing a deal. Recruiters are expected to make sure placements are made without any designated authority. They must be able to lead without pushing people around. Their power is subtle yet effective. When one knows how to be a headhunter they become comfortable with speaking less and listening more.
How do recruiters establish trust and credibility? It's not by boasting or rattling off highlights on their resume. Headhunters break the ice and dive into a conversation by asking intelligent questions. They don't waste time with small talk. They don't have time to spare. The best recruiters keep their focus on meeting the requirements of the candidate and the client employer. When those requirements are met, offers are extended and accepted.
We are sales people on a mission. A great deal is expected of us and in return we also have expectations. Headhunters have the luxury of choosing their clients and candidates. Mess with a recruiter's livelihood and you risk being dumped like a sack of flour.
Speak with authority. Talk slowly and enunciate clearly. "Hi. My name is Paul Bunyon. I'm an Executive Recruiter and I do have an opportunity to discuss with you. Your name has come to me on a confidential basis. Can you talk privately?" Silence. Give your candidate a moment to digest what they've just heard. 99% of the time you'll have their undivided attention or schedule a time when they can talk privately.
Keep asking questions. "In order to make a move and feel like you're taking a step up in your career, what would have to be in place?" Recruiters maintain control with questions. When asked a question, answer briefly and ask a new one. Reveal nothing about your client or the position until the candidate shows they qualify and have a sincere motivation to make a move.
Candidates and clients both want to know the answer to, 'What's In It For Me?' Recruiters who keep asking about motivation will be armed with crucial information when the time comes to negotiate and close the deal. What makes Headhunting more challenging than the average sales position is our 'product' (the candidate) has a mind of her own and this complicates the process. Their needs must be met for the placement to be made. Every placement essentially involves two sales!
The secret to being irresistible is to make it your business to let other people do the talking. Hone your ability to ask questions and your income will rise proportionally. Memorize lots of questions. You'll soon discover most people are disarmed easily once they realize you're genuinely interested in what they have to say about themselves. They rarely get this kind of undivided attention.
As a Headhunter you're expected to be an expert about your chosen industry. Listen carefully to everyone. These folks will refer colleagues and new clients to you. Information is power. Information is the currency of the recruiting trade. To be an irresistible Headhunter, follow the placement process. Ask questions and listen for answers that reveal what will ensure both sides, employer and candidate, 'buy' the deal. As you learn how to be a Headhunter and do your job well both sides will love you and your bonus is a generous fee.

Three Top Catering Options for a Wedding

Three of the most popular catering choices for a wedding include the finger buffet, the hot buffet and the sit down meal. Consider the type of reception you are having in trying to decide what type of meal would be best to serve your guests.

A finger buffet is a no-fuss catering option that works very well for many different venues. When selecting finger foods, offer more than one menu choice if you are able to. The place where you are holding the reception may offer you three or four menu choices, but if you are catering for a large group, such as 100 or more, you may wish to provide your guests with more options.

If you are offered a choice of what menu you would like, mixing and matching foods is always a good idea. You can peruse the menu that is provided to you and from there, select the finger food that would be most appetizing for your guests. This will provide everyone in attendance with a larger selection of foods from which to enjoy.

A venue that does not allow you to have a say in the choices for the finger buffet may not be the optimum choice for your reception. It is your wedding and you are paying for it so you want to be able to make the decisions related to it.

A hot buffet is another catering option for a wedding that is popular but will cost you more than the finger buffet. This choice would be a good daytime catering choice as well as an evening one. It would suit any couple on their wedding day because it offers something for everyone.

You can include on the hot buffet anything that suits your fancy and is within your price range. Sweet and sour chicken, lasagna, shepherd's pie or chilli make excellent choices for the main dishes.

The hot buffet would not be complete without an assortment of side dishes. These dishes compliment whatever main dish is the centerpiece for the meal. Some options for side dishes include rice, potatoes, French fries and vegetables (such as pea, carrots and corn). You may also wish to have rolls, biscuits or garlic bread.

In the case of a hot buffet, the guests can get up from their tables and serve themselves. Service time is relatively fast when people have the option of picking out their own food.

The sit down meal is a popular option for wedding catering but not as popular as it was a decade ago. This is a traditional means of serving a meal at a wedding but the potential for errors is great (slow service, cold food) and it can be rather dull.