Kitchen Designs by Ken Kelly the Number 1 Wood-Mode Dealer in NY
Kitchen Designs by Ken Kelly is the number 1 wood-mode dealer in the Tri-State area and the number 9 dealer in the country. Their unsurpassed client satisfaction makes them the leading source for kitchen design. “Our goal is to provide our clients with precise attention to detail, the best selection of the highest quality products, uncompromising business ethics, and a commitment to remarkable design that enhances their lives,” says Ken Kelly, who founded Kitchen Designs in 1982.
Working in all designer styles, from traditional to contemporary and country to eclectic, Kitchen Designs can create the exact look you have always dreamed of for your home or office. The Kitchen Designs team partners with homeowners, remodelers, architects, interior designers and builders throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to create stunning rooms that showcase the homeowner’s personal style and design aesthetic.
Kitchen Designs has also been consistently ranked in the USA’s top 20 as a Master’s Club dealer since 1992. Kitchen Designs is the largest Wood Mode kitchen and bath showroom on Long Island. A full service design studio, they offer total turn-key services, coordinating the entire project from design and cabinetry installation to fixtures, countertops, flooring, windows, and lighting. Kitchen Designs has a highly skilled team of representatives to help you with your project, big or small. With Kitchen Designs, your cabinets will be built entirely in the USA.
By combining the best materials and most advanced technology with the woodworking skills of experienced craftspeople, Kitchen Designs offers true, custom-built cabinetry for multiple areas within your home. Quality, design, and attention to detail are a top priority. In the end, they ensure that spaces are planned to make the most of your lifestyle, work habits, taste, and budget. In addition to kitchens and baths, Kitchen Designs is often commissioned to design mud rooms, garage cabinetry, basement cabinetry, media rooms, home offices, wine cellars, outdoor kitchens, bedroom closets and cabinetry, and laundry rooms.
Before you purchase cookie cutter replacement cabinetry, put your budget in the trustworthy hands of their professionals. From low-budget kitchens, mid-level remodels, to super high-end luxury designs, Kitchen Designs provides you with an exceptional start-to-finish experience. Their team oversees every aspect of your project including all the general contracting, tradespeople, schedules, and project details to ensure a seamless installation.
For more information on Kitchen Designs by Ken Kelly, visit their website, follow them on Facebook or Twitter or read their blog! You can also shop Kitchen Designs online!
Regent Partners with Alliance Business Centers Network
Regent Business Centers is pleased to announce their new partnership with Alliance Business Centers’ Virtual Offices. Alliance Virtual Offices is a global provider of high quality virtual office, telecommunications and meeting room solutions. This partnership allows Regent Business Centers to offer their clients access to world class office space and virtual office services.
By joining Alliance Virtual Offices, Regent Business Centers can offer flexible options that are essential to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Those taking advantage of this new partnership will be able to choose from:
- On-Demand office space and meeting rooms at Regent’s prestigious business addresses across the country including locations in New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other locations.
- Live answering and virtual assistants providing a professional first impression for your clients while simplifying your day and eliminating the additional cost associated with full time administrative help.
- Hosted PBX phone systems with robust features including voicemail emailed as an audio file, dial by name directory and call blocking, forwarding and handling rules.
Clients of Regent Business Centers will also enjoy access to the multitude of other offices found in the Alliance Virtual Office network. With over 650 world-class offices available to Regent clients, it has never been easier to work comfortably and efficiently while traveling.
“We are excited to add the Alliance Business Centers Network to our list of business amenities,” remarked David Nadler, Managing Partner of Regent Business Centers. “Expanding our services to include this global offering allows us to meet the changing needs of our clients, while providing them with another resource for competing in today’s challenging economy.”
To learn more about Regent Business Centers visit www.regentbc.com. To learn more about Alliance Virtual Office services, visit www.abcnvirtual.com.
Regent Business Centers Partner with Sentry Centers
Regent Business Centers’ New York locations have joined an affiliation with Sentry Centers full service conferencing facilities.
Together, Regent and Sentry can offer meeting facilities accomodating groups from 2 to 400 people. Regent clients taking advantage of the Sentry Centers location will enjoy catering, breakout rooms, banquets, events, presentations and more. Fully serviced and staffed, our professional team will assist in making your event successful and memorable.
For more information on the Regent Business Centers and Sentry Centers affilation and what it means for your business,
please contact your Regent Business Center Manager.
Regent Business Centers at
340 Madison Avenue and 750 Third Avenue
Lisa Rosof
212-220-9501
Email: lisa@regentbc.com
Regent Business Centers at
1325 Sixth Avenue
Kerry Brennan
212-763-8301
Email: kbrennan@regentbc.com
Virtual Assistants and Outsourcing…Both Can Benefit Your Business.
For many business owners and managers, the decision to outsource a job or position is becoming more and more common. With budgets tight, the role of the Virtual Assistant has become vital to many businesses and outsourcing can save a business thousands of dollars. Let’s examine how your business can take advantage of one or both of these options.
Virtual Assistants
Virtual Assistants (VAs) can play an extremely valuable role in many businesses. As compared to a secretary or executive assistant who is hired by the firm and works on site, the VA works off site and is either an independent contractor or is hired through a firm like FrontDesk.
VAs provide business support ranging from basic reception services, such as phone answering and call routing to full secretarial support including appointment scheduling. With a Virtual Assitant, your firm is not required to pay payroll taxes, sick or holiday pay. Your VA will collaborate with you to understand your business and works with you on an as needed basis to meet your needs. VAs provide business owners with the additional support they need without the added overhead of a full time employee.
For more information regarding how a virtual assistant can help your business, visit FrontDesk.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing allows business owners to hire professionals for specific jobs on an as needed basis. When outsourcing a job, there are several factors to keep in mind to ensure the experience is a successful one. First, always ask for references and samples of previous work. Ensure that you are able to easily connect with your potential hire. If you have difficulty contacting a potential contractor during the interview phase, chances are they will also be hard to get a hold of during the length of the contract.
Be certain that you have set clear expectations and instructions for your project. Set a regular schedule of meetings to address any issues that could crop up and to check the status of the work being completed. Make certain that you are available to answer any questions that arise during the project.
Ensuring that both parties are aware of and agree to the terms of payment prior to starting the project is also essential. This will make for a smoothly run project and will also keep the doors open for future work if the overall project is a success.
Concepts that Help You Grow Your Business
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a book or website that had all the tips you needed to help your business grow? A simple list of steps you could follow that would guarantee success. If only life was that simple, right?
Well growing a business is never that simple or easy. But with some hard work and the drive to succeed, you will get where you want to be. Along the road to success, you can use these concepts to help you grow your business.
Don’t Work in a Vacuum. That nose to the grindstone mentality is only good to a certain degree. You need to get out there and meet other entrepreneurs and business people. Join networking groups. Talk to your peers. Find a mentor. By sharing experiences, frustrations and asking questions, you will go farther than you ever could alone.
Build A Quality Staff. This includes hiring people who are able to get the work done, not just conceptual thinkers. It also means expressing clearly to your team what the goals of the company are and what you expect from each team member. You will go further when everyone is striving toward a common goal.
Be Mindful of the Numbers. While you can’t do everything and it is important to have qualified financial experts on your team, you also need to be aware of and fully understand the numbers associated with your business. Don’t assume your financial team is looking out for your best interest. No one will take your success more seriously than you will.
Working On Your Business and Working In Your Business are Two Different Things. Understanding, knowing and working on both aspects of your business are essential. Working on the day to day operations is working IN your business. Working on the growth potential, examining ways to improve, change and expand operations is working ON your business. You must embrace both aspects of your job to help your business grow and succeed.
Strengthen Relationships, Increase Sales
Looking to strengthen relationships and increase sales? Of course you are! Anyone in business today knows the value of their established relationships. So what is the key to ensuring that those key relationships you spent valuable time nurturing continue to reward you into the future? The key is to focus on the customer.
With the tentative turnaround in the economy, it may be tempting to start focusing more on new business and let your current relationships shift into autopilot. Resist that temptation. As you seek out new business, don’t neglect those clients who have been with you over the long haul. Here are some tips that can help you maintain existing client relationships and grow new relationships as well.
- Perception is Reality. Let’s face it what the client thinks is law. If their slow, you’re slow. If their busy, you’re busy. Right? Focus on your client’s reality and you are sure to find the answers you seek. Understand what they are looking for in their products or services, what value they seek, what their current reality is and you will find that your partnership approach leads to a closed sale.
- Know Thy Self. As important as knowing your customer is, it is as important to know your own company and product. Understand what sets you apart from your competition, but know this from the eyes of your customer so you can answer their questions and meet their reality.
- Get Out There. The new version of this is to network via social media. Don’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Embrace the power of these new media tools and cold call via the Internet. Use a blog, email campaign or personal website to capture the minds of your customers and express to them the value of your business and begin establishing those valuable relationships.
Moving Your Business Forward in a Down Economy
A successful business is one that is able to move quickly and adapt to change. With swift responses to changing situations, a successful business will remain successful even in a down economy, like the one we are living through today. These tips will help your business to continue moving forward and growing in any situation.
- The Customer is King. Your customers are your most valuable asset. You spent time, energy and expense to acquire them. Don’t let a negative experience or competitor steal them out from under you. Do everything you can to ensure that every interaction is a positive one. Take the time to interact with your customers through social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Yelp. Knowing what your customers are saying about you, both positive and negative, will help you to know where you are succeeding, and possibly failing, as a business. Do everything in your power to fix any areas where your customer service isn’t up to par.
- Know the Competition. This is closely related to knowing your customer. You need to know your competition inside and out because your customer likely does. Ensure that you are aware of their product and service developments, what their customers are saying about them and how your company compares. Keeping up on the competition is as easy as reading trade journals, following them on Twitter and setting up Google Alerts.
- Engage Your Customer. When you invest your time and energy to start talking to your customers via social media, resist the urge to SELL, SELL, SELL! It is essential that you provide them with a service in addition to your product, or you will quickly turn your customers off. Provide them with interesting tips, relevant information, some kind of additional content that goes beyond what they would expect to see about your product or service. Become a partner with your customer, a resource for information, and they will look forward to hearing from you.
- Know When to Spend. This is the trickiest point of all. When the economy slows down it is only logical to tighten your budgets and not spend as much. But when things start to turn around, it is time to start making small spending choices. When business starts to improve make strategic decisions about adding staff, widening product lines or purchasing equipment. Adding a part time or freelance person can offer the added help you need without the commitment of a full time employee. Adding one or two additional products can give your line the freshness and lift it needs. Making those strategic decisions are essential to future success.
Tips from the Book “Secrets of Small Business Owners Exposed”
We loved these tips that any business, large or small, can put into practice to be better. We hope you find them as valuable as we do!
- Create and communicate your organizational clarity. Clear roles and responsibilities within your company are necessary. Articulate your vision.
- Someone has to be in charge. Decide where the buck stops. When there is shared responsibility, there is no responsibility.
- Find Your Focus. Be focused on your company’s direction. Pay special attention to the financial side of your business.
- Plan, Plan, Plan. There is no substitute for planning. Prior preparation prevents a pretty poor performance.
- Develop Systems. As FedEx says, “Systemize the routine; humanize the exception.”
- Customer Service is Essential. Give your customers the type of service you expect from your vendors.
- Think, Think, Think. Never stop thinking about ways to be different, innovative, creative and exclusive. Make your business the best it can be.
- Don’t delay! Take action now!
- Go the Extra Mile. Your customers will appreciate it and you will build rapport and long term relationships by proving you are in for the long haul. A little extra goes a long way!
What Do Business Owners and Senior Managers Say about Today’s Changing Business Climate?
Check out these interesting statistics from a survey of 1,500 business owners and senior managers about how today’s business climate may be changing.
- 58% of business leaders no longer consider the size of a business’ staff as a benchmark of success.
- 94% of those surveyed evaluate their team based on results rather than the amount of time spent in the office.
- 47% of respondents do not believe that age has anything to do with being a trust business leader.
- 61% of business leaders still believe that size, design and location of your office says a lot about the success of your business.
- 62% believe that membership in trade organizations is still important to business success.
- 36% of respondents disagree that the traditional work week lasts from Monday to Friday.
- 49% of respondents disagree with the statement that “Nine to five are the accepted working hours.”
Source: T-Mobile Business Sense Survey, 2010.
Quick Tips for Growing Your Business
There are no two ways about it, opening a business and growing from start up to established is challenging. If you are a hard working business owner, you are always looking for ways to draw attention to your business, draw in new clients and grow your business affordably.
Here are some quick tips to get you started.
- Know Your Target – It doesn’t do any good to go out and pitch your product or service to someone who has no interest or need for it. You must know your target audience. Is your target young or old? Male or female? Are they driven to buy by price, quality or as early adopters of new technology? Before you start selling, you need to know who you are selling to and what will entice them to buy or engage in your service.
- Invest in Advertising – Advertising comes in many shapes, sizes and forms these days. Embrace traditional forms such as newspaper, radio and TV, as well as new forms such as social media, email blasts and Pay Per Click. Evaluate your budget, know what you can afford and what your target market is most likely to respond to. Keep your message clear and concise, and don’t forget a call to action!
- Embrace the Online World – You can use the internet to build buzz for your business. With a well designed and actively updated website, you can keep your clients and customers engaged with your product or service. Consider whether your business can benefit from social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- Looks Matter – Whether it is a blog post, magazine ad or flyer, image does matter. Make sure your copy is clean of errors and that your images are clear and concise. Leave some white space on the page so the eye can rest. A page cluttered with images and graphics will be too distracting to accurately convey your message.
