Enjoy This Month’s Scoop And Learn About Exciting Events Happening Around Toronto’s Waterfront.

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George Nogalo

Sales Manager, Industrial Products, Tenaris

Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever been?
The most interesting place I have been to is Machu Pichu, Peru. It is a fascinating and beautiful location which ties together my love of travel, history and meeting new people and cultures. Highly recommended!

If you had to eat one thing for every meal for the rest of your life, what would you eat?
This is a really hard question but I would have to say Italian food would be my pick. Specifically, I would choose ravioli from my favourite restaurant: Aurora’s in my home town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?
I would highly recommend scuba diving in a tropical location. The environment is magical with fish and creatures of all shapes, sizes and colours!

What song would you sing on Karaoke night?
Anything by the Scorpions which is one of my favourite rock bands of the eighties and nineties. But please do not ask me to sing… it is scary.

If you could have dinner with any three people, past or present, who would they be?
Another tough question, but I would say Nelson Mandela who everyone knows is such a remarkable man. I studied the apartheid system in South Africa while in University and how his actions and words inspired the change that occurred.

On a lighter note I would like to have dinner with Canadian singer Justin Bieber. His drive, determination, and talent are admirable.

Finally, I would like to have dinner with my paternal grandmother. She passed away when I was quite young so did not get a change to know her well.

If you’ve been in business for a while, chances are you’ve participated in, or simply heard about, a meeting, interview, or conference that could have been mistaken for a deleted scene from The Office. Hopefully, for your sake, the disaster wasn’t due to something you said or did.

With video meetings being an integral part of doing business, it’s important to take note of any tips and tricks available to ensure that your next meeting goes without a hitch.

Testing

I can’t place enough importance on testing your equipment prior to the date of your meeting. The last thing you want to do is download the program you plan on using the morning of your meeting; learning how to use it while you’re in a potentially important meeting is not professional. At the Rostie Group, we always offer to run a test ahead of the meeting date to ensure you have everything under control.

Timing

If your meeting is set to start at 2pm, be sure to have everything set up some 15 minutes in advance. It’s always easier to get your set-up out of the way and then go get your coffee or bagel. If you’re ready to go in advance then you don’t run the risk of missing the meeting start time by a couple minutes. Logging into the meeting at the exact time goes a long way when impressing a prospective client or new employer.

Muting

Rarely do people mute themselves when they aren’t speaking. Learning how to use the mute button is a great idea if you’re listening to a pitch or participating in a meeting where participants on either end are taking extended times to speak. This provides you the opportunity to discuss with the people on your end without interrupting the speaker, and without giving anything away that might adversely affect negotiations. Also, it’s handy to mute any coughs or sneezes that may have otherwise interrupted someone.

Clothing

Dress like this meeting wasn’t taking place over video-conference, that truly is the best way to do it. Being over-dressed is always, always, better than being underdressed. Full business outfit, just as if you were in the same room shaking hands with the person on the other end. It’s video after all, made for you both to be seen.

If you’re ready to book your next video meeting, then The Rostie Group has your back. All of our rooms are fully equipped for video, compatible with all major platforms. So just pick a room that fits your attendee size, and book your meeting today.

On the 8th and 9th of November, 2019, Cynthia Rostie of The Rostie Group had the pleasure of attending the Owner’s Forum at Symphony Workplaces, in beautiful Palm Beach, Florida. 

The Owner’s Forum was established to provide a platform for business centre owners to exchange ideas, discuss the issues that affect them, and to explore the wider challenges and opportunities in the evolving workplace market.

The roster of speakers for this year’s event were all industry experts and leaders in their field. Such speakers included Franz Ross, an experienced real estate business appraiser, and Mark Gilbreath – CEO of Liquidspace, amongst others. The discussions centered around topics relating to: coworking, office and team room spaces, meeting room rentals, and industry trends.

Of particular interest was the panel: INDUSTRY REVIEW IN LIGHT OF THE FALLOUT FROM WEWORK – A discussion about the coworking industry in the aftermath of WeWork’s IPO blunder and how the associated publicity has affected attitudes toward the industry.

Surprisingly, the WeWork phenomenon has only highlighted the growing recognition amongst all business types, of the benefits of keeping agile and accommodating the changes in life and work style expectations. The result if a growth in demand for coworking flexible workspace arrangements and on-demand access to facilities.

With this increased profile, new providers are coming into the market. However, WeWork has demonstrated the needs for clients and property managers alike to choose carefully.

The Owner’s Forum members and attendees are all well experienced in the industry, with a track record of establishing relationships and providing services that both clients and building owners can depend on.

We would like to extend a large thank you to Philip Parris for founding the Owner’s Forum and inviting us to this year’s meeting. A special thank you also goes to Nick Logothetis and his team in Palm Beach for hosting this wonderful event. We cannot wait to return next year!

The Rostie Group continuously strives to be the destination for tech-savvy entrepreneurs and enterprise companies around the world.

Not only have we added state-of-the-art video equipment to our meeting spaces, but we have now gone a step further and added podcasting services into our newly designed Mediterranean room.

The Mediterranean room has the unique ability to double as both a meeting room, while also providing a quite place where you an take an hour to decompress. This newly renovated, sound-proofed space is ideal for meditation, mediation, video meetings, and podcasting.

With the ability to fit up to ten people, there is more than enough space to accommodate yourself, your host, and any guests you may have. Additionally, access to meeting video equipment makes it easy to extend your podcast from audio, to a video format.

For more information on our Podcast services please call us at 416-214-1840 or email meetings@rostiegroup.com.

Starting a podcast can be difficult and time consuming, which is why at The Rostie Group we’ve got you covered.

Small or large, all companies have the same goal: to grow. This can be from a simple desire to expand into other geographical territories, or from wanting to grow financially. Of course, if growing was easy, everyone would do it. From a small startup which has just now reached their profitability or IPO stage, or a large multinational wanting to expand into a new territory to grow globally, every company struggles with growth. Not only is it a large monetary investment, but it’s a risky proposition. Even the largest companies who spend adequately in order to research their expansion can find themselves in a hard spot and needing to bail out. Losing out not only financially, but in lost opportunity cost as well.

So how can Virtual Business Offices help?

Here at Virtual Business Offices, we are in a position to help your company grow in a safe and controlled way. By signing up for one of our available virtual packages, you get professional phone answering, mail handling and forwarding, and more importantly, a premier Bay St. address which is recognized the world over as the financial center of Canada. 

However, these are just the tools by which you can extract the real value of our virtual services. The value comes in using us to grow your company further. A local phone number and a local address add trust to your business by showing that you’re not just trying to grab international business, but that you’re here and contributing to the local economy.

It will also reduce costs for your clients by letting them send their mail locally, and call local phone lines, thereby increasing your potential client base, as well as maintaining higher satisfaction levels.

We can even save you more money with our meeting room hours. Complimentary with our virtual packages, you can use free meeting room hours to meet with local clients and officials, with beautiful Lake Ontario or Toronto cityscape views and just steps away from Union Station.

If you’re looking to grow your company internationally, then getting a virtual package is just a no-brainer: taking that complicated process that is growing your company, and making it easier and more cost-efficient than ever before.

Sign up Today!