Virtual Office

[gazzerman]

Most people dont know what a Virtual Office (http://www.yourcityoffice.com) is! A Virtual Office allows you to have a professional business address in a prestigious location but work from home! Its very cheap and very popular. You can have telephone answering (http://www.yourcityoffice.com/telephone_answering.php) in your company name and mail forwarded to your home address.

If you are a new business just starting up this is a great money saver and looks great on your buisness cards, if you are an existing business it can be used to expand to new cities or countries.

Check out www.yourcityoffice.com its the leading Virtual office supplier worldwide and #1 in google.

Please let me know your thoughts or any questions you may have.

[zhinghur]

well thats a nice post(informative one)..... but do u really think it is going to help the startups....

[I AM NICK]

I never knew about these but this is a fantastic idea. I think that expanding your business all around the country and world would be a great investment but if you are shipping products it can chip into your wallet if you are not prepared. But other than that this is excellent for small business'!

[Royer]

I have never seen this site and thanks on this info. But this isn't for everybody, this is only for the people which have expirience in online business because others can easily destroy their whole business by creating this Virtual Office.

[gazzerman]

well thats a nice post(informative one)..... but do u really think it is going to help the startups....

Absolutely, this means you can work from home without the expense of an office. 70% of our business is from startup companies.

The biggest outlay is normally a monthly office rent, with us this is reduced by 90% and you still have an office address that your business can be registered to in a prestigious location allowing the outside world to perceive you as a larger established business.

[spirited]

Wow, this is a new concept. It seems like you register an office that doesn't exist on a real street (like Wall Street in the NY package), and basically you communicate through that site. I know that Second Life has incorporated virtual businesses within their world, but of course this never beats a real office where collaboration is much more effective and it's easier to manage employees, even with the rent costs.

[sridatta]

I think after a couple of years, every online business will have its own virtual office.. thats a pretty cool idea..
Virtual PA is very fun to have :)

[spirited]

Yes, I agree with you sridatta, but it will just be as a temporary replacement for when the employees are not at the main site. They already have those e-conferencing things I know, with Windows live office and etc, so those functions that are already present in these e-conferencing programs will be incorporated into a virtual office type setting.

[Notorious]

I actually never heard of this, I'm actually really intrigued to learn more about this concept. Sounds like you can make some sort of established mini-enterprise in the convenience of your own home. It sounds pretty cool, I'll definitely be reading more into this.

[spirited]

Yeah but remember Notorious, not everyone is going be comfortable sitting in front of a computer for hours and hours end to try to work. Some people would rather be dealing with real people in a real office instead of staring at an LCD and getting their eyes red, and of course in a real office you actually move as opposed to sitting down all the time. These are the fundamentals which will never replace brick-and-mortar places.

[CEO Smith]

Honestly speaking, as the virtual office method have many advantages, it also has some disadvantages. One thing is that when a client founds out, your business will be in big trouble.

Is this method legal??

[Fergal]

Yes this method is legal and a legitimate industry has grown up around this business model. Why would you be in trouble if a client found it? All it means is that you are outsourcing certain services in a particular geographic area to a company that specialises in providing these services. I'd imagine that your clients would be happy provided that you are delivering the quality products or services that they are paying you for.

[pendelton]

See the UPS Store as they offer the service, in a lot of countries I would imagine, as big as they are.

As long as the clients get what they want when they want it they could careless. I never cared where a person worked from as long as I got the services I paid for.

[scifi]

Hey gazzerman!
Its really great thing! I have never heard this idea before..well you can save lot of money on your business aparts from getting some place at much cheaper rates to be called your office & whole day you are at home too!!
But it will not be a good concept for all types of businesses because you can not expect a client to come to your home when you have given address of somewhere else....
Good for businesses just requiring some communication type...I think preferable for online or distant type businesses!!!!!!

[youbetcha1018]

This is a great post Gaz. Many business owners can save time and money if they will use this method. Anyone with business or starters can try this method.

[harmonsmith]

There are many misconceptions about virtual offices. Virtual office doesn't means working at home sitting in front of computer. The main purpose of Virtual office is
that virtual clients do most of their work from home or out in the field, and use Virtual office provider's space as their “professional office space”. They come to provider's facility for meetings, presentations, customer proposals and to pick up their mail, keeping their overhead low while enjoying the flexibility of working seamlessly from home and out on the road. The telesecretarial services assure that clients' phones are answered and calls managed in the most professional way, thus providing their business with the highest professional image possible, regardless of its size.

These are the main advantage of suing virtual offices.
1) Prestigous address you can publish on your stationary, letterhead or business card
2) Your incoming phone calls are always professionally answered by highly trained staff
3) Your incoming calls are either announced and connected to you wherever you are, or placed in your voice mail
4)State-of-the-art facility is available for client or staff meetings, presentations, or any other purpose.

I am using this facility provided by valleyhq (http://www.valleyhq.com/) you can check their site for more information.

[Fergal]

Welcome to Business Advice Forum harmonsmith and thanks for sharing your experience of virtual offices with us. The images on Valley HQ's website certainly portray a very professional office environment and at rates starting at $60 a month, it sounds like great value. What type of business are you using their service for?

[jjreview]

I think it also depends on whether you have to maintain inventory. If you're retail, a virtual office wouldn't work for you, unless you had a warehouse. I think that there are a few business that people feel more comfortable having some off-line component. Some accountability, some place to go and talk to a real person. Online stuff can evaporate overnight.

Check out CES Virtual Offices.

[ScottMarsh12]

I agree that virtual office is one of the best service ever for telephone answering,web designing and so many other field.My personal experience with that is really nice and quite beneficial.The main advantage of it is 'Running a business online is all about flexibility and freedom'.That is the way by which we can can make your market and business criteria larger and world wide.

[Remotestaff]

You know what complements a virtual office setup? Why, virtual staff, of course.

If any of you would like to know more about how you can make virtual staffing solutions work for your business, please private message me, or click the link on my sig :) thanks

[haramarcuse]

Virtual office will operate efficiently if it is reinforced with the right kind of virtual phone system. Unified communication make it easy for the business owners to track down call and messages between satellite offices and employees.

[mine4ever]

Since this thread has been here for a long time, I was not able to follow the topic anymore. However, if you want to talk about virtual office, I can say that it is really great to have your own virtual office. It gives you the flexibility that you need, saves you money and provides the benefits of the Internet revolution.

[anderson]

It does not need any physical location. The important part of establishing good productivity within a virtual office is that a series of rules and regulations must be created for all employees and freelancers to follow.

[mine4ever]

Since this thread has been here for a long time, I was not able to follow the topic anymore. However, if you want to talk about virtual office, I can say that it is really great to have your own virtual office. It gives you the flexibility that you need, saves you money and provides the benefits of the Internet revolution.

[mine4ever]

Since this thread has been here for a long time, I was not able to follow the topic anymore. However, if you want to talk about virtual office, I can say that it is really great to have your own virtual office. It gives you the flexibility that you need, saves you money and provides the benefits of the Internet revolution.

[td2011]

Virtual offices are a great option and can be arguably more environmentally friendly. You don't need to use petrol to drive to work and there are less utilities and overall less space.

Productivity can be increased as there is less "gossip" and hanging around the photocopier!!!

Downsides however can be that working from home is not for everyone. Learning opportunities can also be limited as you can't simply check things with colleagues as easily or pick up examples of how to do things more efficiently by simply hearing conversations in the office.

Overall though, there are many benefits and even free or low cost technological programmes that can assist.

[anish sangamam]

Thanks for sharing.its indeed a very useful thread.I was unware of it.thanks a lot

[LeoVKW]

The concept of "virtual business" has been taken much further than obtaining a street address through such a service. An increasing number of lifestyle entrepreneurs opt to staff their entire business virtually. I dubbed them "lifestyle entrepreneurs" because their goal is not to create the next Fortune 500 company but to make enough money to afford their lifestyle. They turn to company's such as VKW (http://vkwinc.com/) to staff their business, then rent a beach house in Brazil.

Here are two reference articles on the topic:
http://www.articlesbase.com/online-business-articles/how-virtual-office-assistance-benefits-entrepreneurs-4603810.html
...and there are even tax advantages to it: http://finance.bnet.com/bnet/news/read?GUID=18187615

Fascinating!

[firstchoicecar]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this virtual office,you give me an idea about this one.

[Ashley Rice]

A virtual office can also save you some time and money and it can provides you and your company with the capabilities to remain productive from home or office. Here's a good review on how to choose the best virtual office software (http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/01/19/virtual-office-software).