How to Organize Your Office Space

Controlled chaos seems to be the best description of most office spaces today. Stacks of paper waiting to be sorted, post it notes here and there, and old mail that you are pretty sure holds at least one bill that was not paid last month. This picture applies to the virtual office professional as well as the natural. But how can you gain control when all the post it notes seem to blur into one big eye sore and you are just too busy to dive into the stacks of papers to be sorted? I would like to offer a few business solutions to help you move forward and break the habits that keep you in this hectic atmosphere. 

• Your Desk: Make keeping this space clear and organized your top priority. Go through your inbox each morning with a highlighter in hand. Highlight important information like deadlines and phone numbers. Sort the documents as Throwaway, To Be Filed, or Follow-Up. Deal with urgent tasks immediately.
• Your Tools and Equipment: Keep tools, resources, and equipment you use often, nearby. Keep a clock and calendar right in full view. Your desk supplies like pens, highlighters, and scissors should have a specified spot within your desk closest to your reach—maybe the top drawer. If you use larger equipment like a fax machine, for instance, keep it close by as well.
• Organize and Reduce Paperwork: As you go through your inbox in the morning or even throughout your day, make it a point to deal with the documents in your hand. Ask yourself, if this information could be inputted in your electronic organizer, if you have one. File current documents alphabetically in the deep drawer within your desk. Documents not used or referred to as often should be filed in a filing cabinet nearby. Lastly, scanning of older documents to be saved on disk, also known as electronic filing, makes for better out of the way storage and easier retrieval than paper filing.
• The Old Fashioned To-Do List: Preparing for the next business day is pertinent in helping you maximize your productivity. Make it a habit to close each day by making a list of priorities for the next workday, while making note of what could be delegated to another professional. Develop or plan a routine that will make things run more smoothly for you as well.
• Have a Routine Set in Place: Follow a daily routine and you will find yourself working on autopilot. This will also help you maintain the home office system of organization you have set in place. 

In closing, I would like to recommend a tool I came across from Office Depot: "Put Your Work Style to Work 5 Day Plan" http://www.officedepot.com/promo.do?file=/promo/makeover/getorganized.jsp. This resource will help you become more self-aware and will help you maintain organization once you have reached it. 

In The News: Rhonda's Virtual Office

As a business owner and virtual business mentor, I have the opportunity to meet people from all across the world.  The greatest reward I receive is when a colleague that I’ve mentored obtains recognition for they’ve achieved.  This month, I would like to spotlight Rhonda Holscher, owner of Rhonda’s Virtual Office.

Rhonda’s Virtual Office helps companies streamline

By Kellie Geist-May

Complete Tasks with Less Effort: Improve Production

Every business owner has a task list that exceeds the length of their arm. With each new day that dawns, another item is thrown on the "to-do" list. Then of course, you are faced with prioritizing your list all over again. This is a continuous cycle that can result in low production and high stress.

Wouldn't you appreciate a service that could allow you to be less active in the "daily to-do" list and more productive in generating revenue?

Agenda management is just one small task virtual professionals perform. It goes hand in hand with email management and appointment setting. The process starts early in the morning with picking up your email, answering what needs to be addressed, deleting spam communications, and forwarding what needs your exclusive attention. From there the list is populated with additional tasks and prioritized on your behalf.

After a phone conversation, the priorities may be adjusted to suit your personal appeal but still nothing needs your hands-on attention. Your virtual professional has it all under control eliminating any reason to become stressed. By the end of the day, you can put your feet up and relax knowing that the minor to-do's for the day are being handled by someone who has a true passion for your business.

If you really want to pump up the production with less effort, you can take the agenda management services one step further.

Operating your business effectively can be done with less effort on your part. All you need is a good executive assistant on board. Your executive assistant can help you micromanage anything from setting up events to processing customer orders. If you can carry out the task in a traditional office setting, it can be done remotely from a virtual office.

Experienced virtual professionals are experts at micromanaging the day to day grind. No hand-holding is required! All effort is made to know how your business is operated. We manage customer relationships with integrity and your business as if it were our own.

Go Green: Isn’t it time you considered the benefits of operating a green office?

Green is in! Businesses across the globe are searching for ways to transform their business into a “green” business. From saving documents in electronic format verses printing to changing overhead lighting to Energy Star certified compact fluorescent lighting. Every effort is being made to cut on cost.

What about taking the “green concept” a little further?!

Transitioning your traditional office space to a virtual office environment will save your company more money than you can imagine. It begins with the elimination of costs associated with office equipment, utilities, and employee wage benefits. Going green with a virtual office saves the environment and improves the company’s bottom-line. Your accountant will be astounded by the money you save.

With a virtual office in place you eliminate the need to commute back and forth to the office. Consequently, this saves on gas and decreases the amount of pollution you’re contributing to the environment. This improves the footprint your life leaves behind.

Think about it!

Contracting a remote assistant is one small way you can contribute. If you don’t know where to begin, all it takes is one call and we can show you where to begin. Test drive using a remote assistant today and discover how easy it is to work virtually.

The Virtual Office: Is your company staying in-touch with today’s technology?

With all of the technical gadgets available to business professionals, I am surprised that more industries are not pursing the benefits of a virtual office. The expanded technology platform of web, email, fax, and phone can be used to create a very powerful virtual executive service team to enable business success. Best of all, these services are available without the usual expenses associated with hiring and training new people.

Technology today allows us to access any type of information from any place across the globe. From email communications to browsing the web, we are a society that feeds off of what technology has to offer us. Why then, would it not make sense to transition how you do business to the virtual office environment? If it is the human element you are concerned about, don’t be. The human element of face-to-face communication is still possible with an upgrade to web cams and webinar subscriptions.

Exploring Virtual Services

A virtual service is a service performed by a person or firm whom you may never meet in person, but can communicate with on demand by phone, instant messenger, or email. Solo entrepreneurs who use a virtual service gain access to talent that is tailored to suit their business needs that would otherwise be unaffordable if the service was performed on-site.

Examples of virtual services include but are not limited to the following:

· Administrative support
· Automated bookkeeping / accounting
· Business consulting & development
· Back office work
· E-commerce support
· E-learning
· Ghostwriter
· Graphic design
· Web hosting
· Web development
· Web copy
· And the list goes on.

Just about any service you can think of that is necessary to operate your business can be provided virtually, including customer service.

Technical Benefit to a Virtual Team

More than ever before, your business needs an edge to stay alive. Positioning your business in the main stream of technology may just be that edge. Perhaps you’ve had to lay off office personnel and that is hurting your business because you have no one to monitor the phones, or shipping and receiving is cut back to once a week and your sales have suffered. A virtual office team is just what you need.

Every aspect of your business can be handled by a team of virtual professionals, making the sale of your services and products a priority. No longer do you have a collection of vendors to track or employee benefits to pay; instead, you have a trained team of experts on board that help you streamline your business activities to give you more time to pursue profitable business endeavors.

If you invest in a virtual executive service team like Hess Business Professionals & Associates, you will have a team of trained experts at your finger tips who have more than a decade of ongoing experience in project management, team leadership, email communications, e-commerce back office support, remote bookkeeping, and so much more. All for an affordable rate!

Our associates keep your business operating in the main stream of technology.

Virtual Office Team Expansion

We are proud to announce the expansion of our virtual office team. Hess Business Professionals & Associates is reaching out to the unemployed business professional and stay-at-home mom. Through a number of certified programs, we plan to equip people with the right success tools to pursue a career in the virtual industry as a remote secretary, project manager, web coordinator or data entry specialist. The positions are endless!

The Certified Virtual Seal of Professionalism is a recognized emblem that tells the online community you’ve gained the knowledge and training, and are continuing your ongoing education in the virtual industry. You’ve earned the right to be called an expert in the virtual field.

If that isn’t enough to convince you to share in our excitement, all participants in this program will gain access to a virtual business mentor, who will provide them with ongoing advice and training as they build their business, for an entire year. This is an offer to stay connected and work as a Hess Business Professionals & Associates virtual subcontractor while pursuing a career of their own.

Joining our virtual office team expansion starts by first taking the free evaluation at http://www.certifiedvp.com.

We take all applications seriously, but to be a part of our associate team and uphold the policies and procedures of a true professional certification program, all participants must successfully complete the training to be considered for the CVP Subcontractor List. Hess Business Professionals & Associates LLC is a company that has been servicing the online community for more than a decade. We pride ourselves in delivering a performance unbeatable by our competitors with excellence and integrity.