A fellow came through to tour our facility last week.  I was showing him an office and trying to get a read on where he wanted to be on price for his office.  To make sure he had a feel for all the options available to him, I suggested we look at an interior office.  He stopped me and said he wasn't concerned about the cost of the office, he knew he'd make it up in personal productivity.  At the last minute I decided not to drop to my knees and thank him for understandin...

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners have discovered a new way of doing business.  Tired of meeting in coffee shops and feeling they need to present a more professional presense to their clientel, they are using shared office space.  While it can take many forms, shared space at Meadow Creek Business Center is a furnished office with phone and internet service available for hourly and daily rental.  If you are going to meet with a client or just want a place to work withou...

The sad state of the economy hasn't made it easy for the entrepreneur or small business owner to grow over the last couple of years. The winners in this environment are the ones that don't give up and keep giving it all they've got. The problem is how to give all you've got. It's not an issue of finding more hours in the day, it's how to make yourself more productive.

Productivity is about focusing your efforts on the things that matter most, working on the things that only you can do, minimizi...

What has your office business center done for you lately?  Other than provide you office space, internet service and a phone?  Probably not much, particularly if you're in a corporately owned facility.  You'll get what you pay for and you'll pay for every last thing you get.  That's not what I had in mind when I created the Meadow Creek Business Center in Issaquah, Washington.

I've never really been in the real estate business and never had the urge...

Selecting office space can get as emotional as buying a car.  The trick is to start by separating what you need from what you want.  This doesn’t have to be extreme, for instance we could all get by with a Yugo, but that doesn’t mean our legitimate needs might go further than that.  How much time do you spend in your car, do you carry passengers often or is your passion music and you require a top of the line sound system.  You might say the last is not really ...

As a provider of office space, I’m often asked “why would I want to pay for office space when I have a home office?”  The first thing that comes to my mind is that I have a home office too and why don’t I just work at home.  My home office is actually quite nice.  It’s just off the front hall and has a great view of our front gardens and a little farther down a growth of pine trees along a ridge frequently visited by bald eagles in the area.  ...

Yeah you, one of the two hundred thousand home based businesses in the Puget Sound area.  I know, you’re a serious entrepreneur.  You’re going to be a big success someday.  You’re going to go viral, be discovered and the world will beat a path to your door.  After the IPO you’ll be worth a bazillion and start chillin with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

In the mean time you’re working out of that spare bedroom with the desk made from cinder blocks and plywood yo...

We were doing our quarterly review of area business centers’ office space, virtual office and meeting room pricing.  Rental rates are down from their highs of 2008, but not for setup fees, non-refundable deposits and hidden extras.  I’ve often wondered why corporations with high expectations on their rates of return were in the executive suite business in the first place.  Now I know!

Here’s a list of things we ran into:

• Setup fee – this is pretty standard, b...

If you’ve survived the recession, you are probably eager to start growing your business again.  Hopefully, you’ve taken the opportunity to get you marketing side of the business in order so that when the business begins to flow you’re positioned to take a larger share.  If not, it’s not too late to make it happen.

Small business owners generally spend 16 hours per week on the “administration” of their business and less than half that amount of time growing their business.&...

Entrepreneurs, small business owners and remote employees of large corporations all have something in common.  They all have a need to work effectively and present themselves as being professional.  If your office is your home, car or suitcase, chances are you struggle with this.

Taking calls on your cell while running through the airport trying to catch your flight, explaining your value proposition to a client in your car attempting to navigate through traffic or resolve a cus...

The recession has created a new wave of entrepreneurs.  Disenchanted corporate executives will often choose to start their own business versus extending their corporate careers.  With close to three-quarters of new businesses failing within 10 years, this is not an easy out to finding another position or without risk. 

Too often new entrepreneurs, even well funded and knowledgeable former executives, will enter their new business adventure with apprehension and not be fully comm...

One of the most often seen questions on market studies I have worked with over the last 30 years is:

“Is the company easy to do business with?”

To many entrepreneurs, this might seem surprising.  You have been so inundated with the mantra of Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) and Irresistible Offers that this may seem an odd question to ask.  With the objective of an immediate sale based on your USP, what could be easier?

Well, the fact of the matter is that very few purchases o...

My cell phone let's me watch TV, view movies, email, surf the internet, take pictures and an untold number of other things I'm sure I have no use for, but it isn't worth a darn for communicating.

For one thing, if we're going to be married to a cell phone 24/7 we want it to be unobtrusive, namely small. Small means that once you put the phone to your ear, the end of it doesn't reach much past your ear lobe. That puts quite a distance between your mouth and the microphone. Under ideal ci...