Some years ago, there was a trend in business culture to have a gorgeous looking girl for a secretary or a reception person. They said, “that’s the first person your partners and clients meet when they come to your office, lure them in with beauty.” While it is certainly nice to be met by an eye-candy, today the first and most important thing people look for is professionalism, and it starts with your front desk person as much as it does with how your office looks and operates in general. Having a Playboy cover-worthy girl meeting your visitors will be of little use if the next thing they have to do is squint at a small laptop monitor to see the diagrams of your business growth and the list of benefits they will obtain from working with you; a nice Samsung curved monitor will help you out better in this particular situation. Investing in your office can bring profits in ways you might not have considered before.

Good Tech Speeds Up Work

The best things in life are free and the value of good business standing is more important than any expensive tech in your office but, for good or for bad, the world moves faster with each passing day, forcing businesses to speed up as well if they want to survive and thrive. Your employees will do their work faster if their computers don’t lag, and faster task solving means more tasks completed in one day, week, month. More tasks—more successful deals, more satisfied clients, better reputation within the industry. Everybody wins.

Innovations Help Negotiations

Be it a meeting with potential partners, clients, or a briefing with your team, there are ways to make it more productive by means of tech. Printed materials are good but interactive examples are better. A presentation shown on a big screen will lay out your (or someone else’s) idea more clearly than anything on paper. By means of a TV, a monitor, or a projector—it is up to you, your wallet, and needs. Also, by saving on paper you save trees and push that dreadful global warming just a tiny bit farther away.

Comfortable Working Conditions Make Loyal and Productive Employees

Lately, outdoor amenities in the offices are all the rage, and there’s a reason for that. Vitamin D is good for our health and mood, it fills us with energy, brings inspiration, helps us be happier. Need a brainstorm with your team for some urgency? Half an hour outside with a cup of coffee might bring better results than half a day in a dark cubicle. If you can’t invest in a veranda of sorts, try that cafe around the corner or an office with large windows on the sunny side at least.

A nice desk and office chair, an external DVD player for laptop to check out obscure but necessary documentation or piece of software, some plants and pictures here and there, a special space to relax—all these can bring stress relief to your employees. Happy employees who know that you care about them stay with the company through good and bad, recommend it to their closest friends and will praise it to everyone willing to listen (and to some unwilling). They also work with vigor and passion because the company’s success is their success. This is the investment that shows you’re here to stay and you want people to stay with you.

Office Design Is a Reflection of Your Business

When your clients enter your office and it shows them what you do right away, it is an important part of their first impression, sometimes it can be the final attribute that will weigh the balance to your side instead of your competitors. And we’re not talking about certificates you have won or the works you have done, though those are of great importance as well. When your whole office tells the story of your business, its principles and work ethics, when it is the embodiment of your passion for what you do—it will be felt by all and every person entering the building. And when you are passionate and dedicated, it instills trust in you and what you do.

How Your Employees Look Is Still Important

Finally, this. We’ve started with how a beauty at your front desk is not what you need to burn your money on but we’d be wrong to say it is of no importance whatsoever. There is value in looks. However, don’t get us wrong. We are talking about how you can benefit from your employees looking professional, tidy, healthy, and happy instead of overworked, sleep-deprived, stressed, with no time to take care of their own looks. Your team is a part of your office, your business, your reputation. Take care of them, too.