Start Your Biz With A Great Office Space & WIN!

Monday, October 19, 2009  //  0 Comments  //  Blog

HAPPY SMALL BUSINESS WEEK!!!

As I mentioned last week, we are going to be having a week-long celebration – complete with PRIZES!!

All throughout the week, I will be posting tip lists about how to start a business (or grow yours) on the right path. I’ll touch on everything from saving money, marketing for less than $500, handling admin tasks and even time management. Please accept my apologies in advance as you will be receiving 1post a day (only for this week), but I know you will not be disappointed with the content!

So far, our Small Biz Week Prizes include:

• A $265 Small business Tax Package from Hilary McDonald Accounting
• A Virtual Office Subscription from 5050Biz
• The Couponizer coupon system
• New York Times best seller “One Year to an Organized Work Life” from the author herself Regina Leeds
• Limited edition T-shirts from RIPT Apparel
• The book 101 Media and Marketing Tips for the Sole Proprietor from Nanette Miner, a.k.a. The Training Doctor
• .. more prizes arriving daily!!

Every time you Retweet the post you’ll receive one entry to win a prize!

Prizes will be given out at the very end of the week – Keep the Retweets and Comments coming!
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Our first article is about setting up a proper home office.

I asked business owners across North America what they thought were Mandatory, Desired and Unwanted items for an optimal home office setup. I got some FAB tips – and even pretty cool pics of home offices. Read on and then let your creativity flow into your office space!!

Mandatory Items for a Functional Home Office

A Multi-Function Centre
Invest in a four-in-one office machine: printer, fax, scanner, and copier.
For the desk space footprint of one machine you get four functions.
It is also easier to scan papers to be filed in the computer than it is to just file them in the drawer.
This upgrade really helps professionals who want to go more paperless in their office.
Eve Abbott, Organizer Extraordinaire
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A Label Maker
Everybody needs a label maker. Labelling files, containers, and drawers helps to define where your stuff and your paper live, and makes their homes more official. When things are clearly labelled, it’s easier to put things away and to stay organized. Label makers aren’t too expensive – some of my favourite Brother models can be found on sale at many office supply stores for under $30. Keep your label maker and extra label cassettes handy, and as soon as you create new file folders or put stuff in a container, create a label immediately.
Joshua Zerkel, Professional Organizer – http://www.customlivingsolutions.com
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A Table Lamp
Put a lamp on your desk; not a desk lamp with an occlusive shade, but a table lamp with a translucent shade. This gives you a larger and more softly diffused circle of light on your work surface. Why is this important? Less eye strain and fewer headaches. Use “warm white” or “soft white” compact fluorescent light bulbs in the lamp. “Cool white” and “bright white” give any room a cold institutional look.
Linda Varone – Nurturing Spaces Consulting
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Current Software
Get the current version of the software used by your customers, and then buy a machine that’s adequate to support it. Don’t “cheap out” on video cards or monitors: you’ll be staring at the screen for four to eight hours a day, so you’ll be smart to get the largest, sharpest display you can afford. It’s a lot easier to compromise on machine speed or memory, but top-notch video quality is essential.
Bill Horne
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Paper & Pens
Lots of pens and paper, for capturing ideas. I personally have a few open notepads open around me so I can capture notes and ideas wherever I am in the house/office.

Good Coffee-Maker
Although coffee is usually not good in the office, at your home office you have the opportunity to have the best coffee in town.
Harry Mylonadis, Mimimoko Design

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Plenty of Supplies for You AND Your Family!
The family’s scissors, tape, markers, pens and pencils should be in an area that is easily accessible to them so they won’t have to interrupt you in order to use your supplies. Make sure they understand that your office is not the family’s office supply store.
Holly Uverity, Certified Professional Organizer®, Office Organizers – The Entrepreneur’s Organizer
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Ergo Chair & Keyboard Tray
The most important tools in a home office are the correct chair and a keyboard tray. A chair that fits your body correctly can alleviate or prevent all types of aches and pains. An adjustable keyboard tray, not a single height keyboard drawer, allows you to get the keyboard and mouse to the correct height reducing strain on the neck and shoulders as well as alleviate contact pressures and adjust the wrist angle to minimize risk for carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis.
Chris Sorrells OTR, CHT, CEAS, President, ErgonomicsSimplified.com
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Room Separator
If you absolutely cannot get your own room, get a room partition or oriental screen to separate the work portion of the room. (This is what I do). You do not want to be able to see the unmade bed, or that pile of laundry, or any other mess from your normal life or you will find yourself doing chores instead of working.
Kris Hull – KR15.com
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Desirable Items for a Functional Home Office

Uninterrupted Power Supply
This doesn’t always come cheap but it’s a good investment. A UPS will save you and pay you back the investment when you are working on that very important project, the power goes out and you hadn’t saved a thing.
Harry Mylonadis, Mimimoko Design
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Labelled Notebooks & Bookcase
For some, hundreds of files can be daunting. It is helpful to have a bookcase with frequently used information contained in easily accessible labelled notebooks
Anne Jones
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Two Monitors
Set up a two monitor system. One to put your email, social network, news sites on. And the other you can do your work
Gary Unger, Creative-at-large – www.garyunger.com
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Custom Designed Workspace
Get a custom designed workspace to make the most of your available space. One that anchors to the wall with shelves is a particularly effective without using much of your floor plan. Also a standing height work surface make a great variation for tasks such as cutting or mounting, or just a change in posture.
Ben Thompson, Creative Director – Studiofluid, Inc.
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Microphone & Headset
One way to make money is to create your own products. A great product is to do a teleclass and charge for it. “Make money in your p.j.s” is a common phrase (although I don’t recommend doing business in p.j.s for the simple reason that when you’re not dressed you don’t feel as professional and may not come across as one on the telephone.)
Eileen Roth, Your Organizing Tour Guide – Speaker and Author of Organizing For Dummies(R)
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Unwanted Items for a Functional Home Office

A Television
…this is a time waster and if you are like me you will want to watch CNN or HGTV for a few minutes and 30minutes later you are still watching…
Leslie Jacobs – www.lesmess.com
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Other Necessary Items for a Functional Home Office

A Post Office Box
For safety purposes, consider getting a P.O. Box instead of using your home address for your business mail. You never know what crazies may be out there.

Professional Clothing
Get up every morning and dress professionally enough that if a surprise opportunity presented itself, you wouldn’t be caught with bed-head in your bathrobe.
Susan Wilson Solovic – SBTV.com
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Interior Décor Foresight
Sit comfortably at the desk and sweep your arm left to right. The desktop under the space between your elbows to your wrist should be empty or have just your keyboard/mouse – this is the active workspace. Place things you grab daily – stapler, tape, pens etc. in the space covered by your wrist to your fingertips. Place things you grab less frequently just past the finger tips and place decorative items to the back corners.
These are my Frequency of Use Rules:
Use it every day – place in or on the desk. Use it every week – put it in the desk or within reach of the desk. Use it at least once a month – it should be within reach of the desk or elsewhere in the room. Use it less than once a month -it can be in the room or even somewhere else in the house.
Placement has a big impact on clutter and productivity. Use this information on where to place things and you’ll have a big head start of setting up an effective and efficient home office.
Susan Lannis, Time Liberation Agent, ORGANIZATION Plus! Inc.
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I hope you’re inpsired to start setting up your home office, or to rearrange – get in gear and be productive and profitable!
Feel free to download the tip list here (PDF format!)

Don’t forget to Retweet this post to be entered in to win one of our amazing prizes – every retweet is an entry!!
Have a great Monday!!
A