What is Blue Monday

Today, Monday, January 18, 2021, is Blue Monday,considered the saddest day of the year, but why? What reason makes it to be considered the saddest day? We will explain below why it has this negative consideration.

 

blue monday

Why is it considered the saddest day of the year?

This unfortunate recognition arose in 2005, when psychologist Cliff Arnall tried to calculate what was the worst day of the year. To this end, he took into account in the weather, the large Christmas expenses and the frustrated purposes of previous years. He also introduced statistics of motivational levels, among other data, to finish calculating which day was the winner of this bad “fame”.

Cliff Arnall, looking at what his patients were telling him, analyzed the factors that stressed those who came to his workshops and concluded that on the third Monday in January of each year he was“particularly depressing.”

In English, the blue word is used to describe sad or depressing things. That’s why he called this day Blue Monday.

Despite his study and conclusion, many people criticize his theories and question his thesis.

What do you think about this day?

fight blue monday

Let’s face Blue Monday with the best SMILE.

We know that this day encourages us to let ourselves be carried away by sadness and apathy, so from Espai114 we want to encourage you to be positive and turn the Blue Monday upside down.

1. Think about it’s one more Monday and it doesn’t have to be better or worse than any other. You decide the attitude with which to face the day.

2. Watch what goes through your mind. Don’t get carried away by negative thoughts and take controlby focusing them on good things.

3. If you really feel it’s not your best day, avoid making decisions that may be motivated by your mood.

4. To cheer you up, do activitiesthat motivate you and have fun. Once your workday is over (or before you start it), do activities that evade you such as exercising, watching series or spending time on your hobby.

5. Finally, there is no sad day that persists by spending a good time in good company. Try to surround yourself with a member of your bubble group to put negative thoughts aside.

 

Espai 114 is always at your disposal to help you and your company.
Here you will find everything we can offer you.

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

AtEspai 114together we are a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

 

What is a Business Center

In case you still don’t know for sure what a Business Center is, today we’re going to explain it to you.

A Business Center is a place that offers private workspaces and complementary services for companies, so that they can carry out their professional activity successfully.

It is a work center where companies from different sectors coexist.

 

Save time and money

Business Centers offer more flexible terms than traditional offices. With a single payment of the rent of the space, the company does not have to think about anything else, the center takes care of the rest: air conditioning costs, supplies, cleaning, maintenance, reception… You can see the comparison between renting a traditional office and renting a space in a business center in this old post.

 

In addition, companies can outsource tasks, saving time. Business centers have services such as mail reception, parcels, reception of visits, courier, secretarial, etc.

 

business center room meetings

Flexibility and workspaces

In our space you have availability of your office or coworking 24 hours a day and every day of the year.

In addition to the flexibility regarding the adaptation and evolution of your work. You can move from a coworking table to a private office or simply have your company domiciled at our address. In addition, you have a multipurpose room for hours to meet with your workers or customers.

You can decide the type of space and time you need it.

 

Image

Key location, in our case in the center of Badalona, so that companies project a more professional image and thus provide greater visibility to their business and a good communication. This will make your image look favored.

 

Consulting

This Business Center, at the same time, is a business consultancy. Lladó Grup Consultor is a consolidated consultancy, which was created in 1955, has other differentiated facilities and is located a few blocks from our space. Here you can receive labor, tax and legal advice without having to hire this service in another consultan advice outside your office.

 

secure business center

Secure business center

This 2021 will continue to be marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies must adapt quickly to changes and secure their workers’ space. That’s why business workers are coming here to work remotely. We seek the safety of our customers, with protection systems between them and health measures.

 

SERVICES WE OFFER AT ESPAI 114:

Coworking

Private offices

Business domiciliation

Meeting room

Financial solutions

Consulting

Continuous formation

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

In Espai 114 together we form a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

The Meeting Room that suits you

On several occasions we have talked about coworking and the benefits of working in a coworking like ours in Badalona,but today we will focus on our multipurpose space, the meeting room with capacity for 20 people. Let’s explain what it is and why it’s so interesting.

The room is located on the ground floor of our local Espai 114. Its open space is specially designed to offer different functions and adapt to changes and all kinds of needs.

Thanks to its large space, the interpersonal distance can be maintained correctly, thus respecting the security measures so necessary in this situation.

 

The possibilities of the Hall are many, so we call it our multipurpose room. We can use it to hold business meetings with all kinds of equipment. We have organized meetings in it, talks i has also been used to teach courses of all kinds of specialties. You can book it for events and even to celebrate afterworks after a long day.

 

meeting room

 

We do not forget to mention that the meeting room is equipped with projector, videoconferencing system, WiFi, coffee maker, catering service and all kinds of furniture to organize the event that you have in mind.

We give you the option to rent exclusively the space of La Sala, or rent all the available space, that is, the two floors of Espai 114. We adapt to your needs depending on the number of people or the type of event you plan to organize. We talk with you and agree on the option that best suits you.

Here you will find more information about La Sala and also a small form so you can let us know what you need and how we can help you.

 

Meetings

 

In our last post we talked about flexiworking, its advantages and everything you should know about it. Click here if you if you are interested in informing yourself.

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

In Espai 114 we are team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

Cost of setting up a business

What is the cost of establishing a business? Before investing the first euro in your future business, plan all the investment it will entail. In addition, you can see how you can finance in this post that we wrote on the blog.

According to the Expansion Dictionary, the costs of establishing a business are those that are accurate for the creation of the company and for the start of its activities, associated with the start-up of a commercial or industrial activity (such as studies, transfers, trademarks or patents), and which are carried out to the asset as a good of the company.

Forecasting results

How much could you sell in a month? From Espai114 we help you with our entrepreneurship tools,where you can find the business plan that we offer you for free.

 

establish company

 

Detailing expenses

We want to list the actual expenses to start with a business. The items that generate the most fixed costs are those of the space and in human resources.

The costs of premises include a periodic lease, the deposits of the same, the conditioning works, the construction project, the furniture, the costs related to the maintenance of the premises: water supplies, electricity, telephone, cleaning and maintenance. You should also have a computer, a software to work with, a POS and a website, or online store… this would be joined by a computer service. Investing in an insurance policy and alarm system will save you a lot of headaches. When you start a business you also have to pay for municipal licenses, fees and taxes.

As for expenditures on human resources, you will have to budget payroll and premiums, depending on the number of workers you will have, in addition to the costs of the self-employed and the hiring of legal / labor / tax counseling. Travel and diets should also be taken into account.

To all the above you will have to add the expenses of banking services and financial expenses such as credit cards, or a vehicle or vehicles for the company, whether rental or own.

After all this great investment, you can not ignore other types of expenses characteristic of your activity, purchase of stock, courier services, logistics…

Put yourself in a situation

Thanks to the business plan we talked about earlier, you can make a feasibility plan and budget for what you’ll enter in the first year, even the next three. The key to viewing your business is knowing your fixed and variable expenses, how you will finance, how and when you will charge, etc.

 

establish business

 

Renting a space in our Business Center will save many of these expenses and especially part of your time in contracting supplies, renovating a premises or buying the furniture. You have the option to rent a table in our coworking to start your activity, or if you are more than one or your business requires it, a private office.

 

Are you clear about the cost of setting up a business?

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

In Espai114 we are a team; We want to inspire you and accompany you.

Entrepreneurship Tools (Part Two)

As we told you in the previous entry, there are free entrepreneurship tools that will make it easier for you to manage your new business.

 

In it, we discovered free management tools with you such as LastPass,the Official Journal of the Generalitat de Catalunya and WeTransfer.

 

In this issue, we’ll focus on work tools for your day-to-day life.

 

Videoconferences

We are in a situation where face-to-face meetings have moved to the background and seeing our colleagues through a screen has become part of our normalcy.

 

Zoomis a program that lets you connect with colleagues or customers virtually. In its free version, it will allow us up to 100 participants and a maximum duration of the meeting of 40 minutes.

 

Far from being a limitation, this time limit can help us maximize meeting productivity, focusing on important points and avoiding distractions.

 

Shared storage

Teamwork can be complicated if teammates work from different locations. Having different documents, or different versions of it, can cause confusion.

 

Tools like Google Drive allow us to upload files and folders in a shared cloud. In addition, this one specifically works as an Office package and we can use it to create Word or Excel documents that will then be editable by all.

 

Design

If we manage our company’s social networks by ourselves or need to create a poster or flyer quickly and easily, there is one tool that will help us: Canva.

 

This intuitive tool will allow you to create your designs from countless free templates of all kinds: posters, postcards, logos, presentations, gift vouchers, infographics and many more.

 

Its interface allows us to create and modify the designs with the drag-and-drop system that will make the work much easier.

 

Now you know three other free entrepreneurship tools to help you in your new business.

Do you want to know them all? Click here.

 

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

 

In Espai 114 we are a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

 

Entrepreneurship Tools (Part One)

Do you know that there are free entrepreneurship tools that will make it easier for you to manage your new business?

To be entrepreneur. According to the RAE, to undertake and start a work, a business, an endeavor, especially if they are difficult.

 

It is because of this intrinsic difficulty in its definition that all help is good at starting a new business.

 

From accounting issues, management issues or work tools to communication platforms. All these aspects of the day-to-day life of your company, and many more, you can manage them easily through a large number of online programs or guides and documents that we provide for free.

 

Here are some examples:

 

entrepreneurship tools

Password manager

Starting a new business involves, in most cases, creating accounts on numerous websites or platforms,which we will need to develop our activity. Examples include Social Media accounts, email accounts or access data to our website.

 

At first there won’t be many accounts to remember, but over time the number will increase and our memoristic ability can play us a bad trick.

 

To help us with that, there are tools like LastPass that will simplify our workby securely storing all our accounts and passwords in one place All protected by a single master password.

 

entrepreneurship tools

Work calendar

All beginnings involve effort and dedication, but they also deserve days offto recharge the batteries.

 

For this reason we provide you with the Official Journal of the Generalitat de Catalunya,in which the days established as a work party are reflected.

 

Sharing documents

It is common the situation of having to send a file to customers, suppliers or other people related to our company, but when trying to do so by email we get a notice similar to “the size of the attachments exceeds the maximum allowed”.

 

This is where WeTransfer saves us. With its free tool, we can send files up to 2 GB to whoever we want and in a very easy and intuitive way.

 

You can find the full list of free entrepreneurship tools we offer by clicking here.

In an upcoming entry we will explain the details of more useful tools for your business.

 

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

 

In Espai 114 we are a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

 

 

 

 

How to prepare a meeting room

From Espai114 we can help you make your meetings run more smoothly and make it a success. In this post we will give you some tips so that it can be so, take the ones you need and adapt them to your meeting!

 

ROOM PREPARATION

For this we must know what kind of meeting we will give: an informative one, formative meeting, to reach an agreement, commercial, close an agreement, creative or to generate ideas…

Depending on one type or another we will organize the Room in the most optimal way possible. In addition we will need to know the number of attendees to order the room more precisely and we will need to know what material is needed: computers, whiteboard, projector, speakers, etc.

  • If it’s a business meeting, closing agreement, etc. we can place an elongated table.
  • If this is a meeting in which to show a new product or service, track the organization, a training session… for these types of meetings the best thing is the classroom format. It would be best to use shovel chairs, with a good view of the person who reports and with room to take notes.
  • Whether it will be a speech or a briefing, or even a training, we can also opt for amphitheater format, in which the speaker is located in the center and can move to the screen where he projects and towards the attendees. Also as the attendees can see each other there is more interaction.

 

PREPARATION OF THE RAPPORTEUR

This is a point that depends entirely on the company that will present the meeting. It is very important for the conference to be a success within the set time and to develop with complete fluency.

Not in all types of meetings tis this needed, but in most of them we can send in the call for appointment the points to be discussed, who will expose them and the time that each will dedicate.

MORE OPTIONS TO CONSIDER

If it will be an important meeting such as a business meeting, closing the sale… other aspects of the room must be taken into account.

 

Reception

It is a point in favor if there is a reception where to welcome attendees. Better if you make it nice, bright and with some seats where to wait.

 

Office material and technical means

It is necessary to ensure that the room is equipped with the necessary technical means, such as plugs to connect the computer, projector, whiteboard, fiber internet, pointer, paper and pens to take notes,for each assistant, and better if they are with the corporate image, so that they remember our space and return.

 

Temperature

The room must have an air conditioning system to make the attendees feel comfortable. It is necessary that there is a pleasant temperature, neither much cold nor much heat.

 

Catering or drinks

It is appreciated that there is something to eat so that the attendees can attend the 100% and not be hungry or thirsty.

A small catering can help attendees stay more relaxed and the meeting goes by without further distractions.

The right thing to do would be to set a timetable and people will know when breaks will be and whether there will be catering or not by the appointment call.

If the meeting won’t last all morning, it might be okay, for example, to make a small breakfast before you start. If it will be longer and it will be until noon it would be more convenient to pause in the middle of the meeting.

If we do not consider ordering a catering, we can offer drinks,such as fresh water, teas or coffees.

 

 

In Espai114 you can rent La Sala by hours to hold your meetings. We will prepare it with care and to your measure so that all your forces are focused on your company and customers.

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

In Espai114we are a team; We want to inspire you and accompany you.

 

The most common mistakes when it comes to entrepreneurship

I think we all know that entrepreneurship is not an easy task. We want to start a project, show it to the public and make it a good reception, but putting it in motion means making mistakes, and learning from them.

In this post we want to inform you of some of the most common mistakes when it comes to entrepreneurship.

1. Not making a Business Plan: Indeed, you have to have certain knowledge and tools to properly realize a Business Plan. But it is so important that you cannot avoid this initial step. You’ll need to be clear about what funds you have to get the business going and where you’re going to get it from. What expenses you’re going to face, too. You will make a forecast of income and expenses that will be revealing. It’s a great exercise!

If you want us to send you a Business Plan model, write to us here: I want a Business Plan

2. Lack of long-term vision: When starting a project we have to take into account many things, and one of the most important is to have a short-term and long-term forecast. Will the needs of the population be changed, or will they be the same? Will the market be himself in 2 or 3 years? Will the product or service I offer remain viable? Having a long-term business vision can prevent your product launch from failing.

3. Lack of communication: Communication is basic, and when offering a product we must know how to communicate and project what we want from this product. Customers must always know what you represent and that it sets you apart from great competition. Differentiation is a key point to success.

 

4. Lack of leadership: Behind a company there has to be a person capable of steerging it on the right track. This person must be a leader, and he has to know how to communicate, in addition to having a series of knowledge that helps the development of the product. It must be persistent, constant and have a good attitude when it comes to facing new challenges and overcoming difficult situations.

5. Not learning from our mistakes. It is a very common mistake, we all make it, and this is not synonymous with failure, on the contrary, it will give us the opportunity to learn how to do things correctly. We must not give up easily, we must face problems, and above all, learn from mistakes and not repeat them.

There are several reasons why an entrepreneur may fail, but lack of communication, leadership, disregarding what can happen in the long run or not learning from mistakes are some of the most common mistakes. If you want your business idea to thrive, keep in mind what is explained in this post.

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

In Espai114 together we are a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.

How to expand your facilities without making works

Normally, when we start a business, we don’t have space to have a meeting room or one in a position to make presentations of new services or products to our customers. We do not have facilities to offer training courses for our employees or to organize conventions of collaborators or suppliers. If we are in any of these cases, it is not necessary to consider making works or looking for a new and larger venue with the discomfort that would entail.

 

When we have the need to call a meeting and have nowhere to do it, there is the possibility of renting a room elsewhere, which may be close to our business or in a certain place. The best option is to rent it in an establishment designed specifically for this use. This way it will be easier for the space to be equipped with everything we may need: furniture, Internet connection, projector, sound system, multimedia and much more.

In addition, many of these rooms are modulable by varying their layout according to our needs at all times, being usual that they can adapt to different purposes: meeting room, trainings, workshops, exhibitions, etc.

 

At Espai114 we offer you The Meeting Room, our space in Badalona, versatile and open, specially designed to achieve different functions and adapt to changes and all kinds of needs. It is ready to host all kinds of meetings such as meetings, afterworks, conferences, courses, training, events…

In addition, we offer you two options; rent only the private room or rent all the space (two floors). Ask us for more information through the form you will find here.

 

We are the Business Center of Badalona, to give visibility and possibilities to your business.

 

In Espai 114 together we form a team; we want to inspire you and accompany you.