Over Chinese New Year holidays where everyone is back for a family reunion, it is not easy to get away from talk of investments, holidays and property ownerships. I don’t like any of these because each person would try to go one up against another and it gets kind of boring after a while, but to go through with this year after year ….

One Uncle would say that he has reservation for San Diego weekly rentals for his private holidays with his family and company trips for the staff. Another Uncle, upon hearing that, would go, “Hey, I OWN a San Diego beach house! I don’t need to rent for my holidays and in fact, I could RENT my beach house to you!” To get the last word in, yet another Uncle would say that he owns a quarter of San Diego real estate!

Of course, I am just giving an example of what could happen in a family reunion and that’s how it ends up most of the time. Who needs that anyway, right?

Do you know what the most needed home appliance is right now? A friend of mine is the manager of an electrical and electronic superstore in the city and he told me that there is a trend in sales. If the weather is exceptionally hot, people would be out buying air-conditioners. If there is the FIFA World Cup, people would be buying large screen TVs and when Chinese New Year is here, people buy DISHWASHERS.

Well, this just shows that there are still so many people who would be having their reunion dinner at home to require a dishwasher. I thought that with the convenience of eating out, most families would rather head for a restaurant.

But I have always wondered and even asked my friend, whether these customers are buying dishwasher, air-conditioner, TV or any other home electrical appliance due to season, what has happened to their previous unit? Why do they have to upgrade it only during the season?

My friend then replied that if everyone was like me, he would not be able to sell ONE dishwasher, air-conditioner or TV a year! Hah!

As a one-woman business concern operating from home, one of the things that I need badly is an assistant but hiring someone is not practical since like I said, I work from home.

Paul, who works in New York, told me that in New York, and many parts of the United States, there are companies that offer virtual office services whereby a company outsource the administrative side of a company to companies that offer these services.

This means that people like me do not even need to set up a real office but we can have a virtual office instead, where real people will be answering our calls, receiving faxes or mail. Our calls and faxes will then be transmitted to us and we can pick up our mail from a REAL office address.

Having a virtual office has many plus points. For one, if you are like me, operating your business from home, I am sure you do not feel comfortable disclosing your home address in your correspondence. Sure, you can rent a Post Office Box but that does nothing to enhance the image of your business! Don’t you agree?

When you have a virtual office with real staff to handle your incoming calls, no longer are you afraid to get away for a little while and leave the phone line unattended. If you are also a one-person business entity, I am sure you know what I am talking about! It does nothing good if you have clients calling and in no one picks up the phone call.

Ah… if I were living in New York, I would have set up a virtual office in a heartbeat!