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Benefits of Hosting a Startup in Your Corporate Office Space
The virtual office has gained a lot of attention over the years as it becomes increasingly easier to work remotely, but for some businesses it brings a unique benefit. It has become possible to host start-up businesses within your office space. While this may at first seem a little odd, there are some extremely unique benefits that you can gain by opening your spaces to a start-up and to helping them establish a virtual office. Naturally, this is a very symbiotic relationship because the start-up gains as much from the experience as you.
How Start-Ups Benefit 
The benefits to start-ups are relatively easy to guess. By being able to share space with an established business, start-ups are able to find better spaces for employees. Most office complexes are made for larger businesses, making it more difficult for start-ups to get the right kind of space for their needs. If you have extra space, you can give them an opportunity that they are not likely to find anywhere else.
The employees stand to benefit a consider amount from the virtual office. They will be able to interact with your employees, providing an amount of stability generally lacking in start-ups. They can gain encouragement and mentoring that they are not likely to find within their own organization, if for no other reason than because they are far fewer in number.
How You Benefit
The energy and ideas of start-ups are contagious. They have a new way of looking at things and in expressing ideas, which will help rejuvenate your workers and your own approach to the work. Start-ups also move far more rapidly than older, larger companies because their primary goal is getting established. This sense of purpose and urgency are great for your employees to witness as well as it will inspire them to take a similar approach.
The close interaction with a start-up will generate a better understanding of other businesses. It is one thing to see how your customers and other businesses work from the outside, but working in close proximity to a start-up creates a whole new appreciation for how others operate. It is too easy to get stuck in a rut or to fall into routines that work in some cases. Having a start-up working in your office space will generate goodwill, and you will be able to help each other in different areas, like new hire references and positive opinions being expressed to others based on the relationship.
Things to Consider
If you are seriously considering creating a virtual office with a start-up, you do need to take a few things into account. For example, you should both sign a nondisclosure agreement to make sure trade secrets are respected and upheld should they be discussed between your company and the start-up. You should also agree to not solicit each other as they generally creates more tension, as well as establishing base rules for working in the same space.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
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Local Phones and Local Leads
Virtual phones offer the benefits of a local phone number as well as the convenience of a virtual office. If you own a business and are constantly on the go, a virtual office may work well for you. No matter what business you’re in, if you work with the public you know the importance of being able to communicate. By using a virtual phone system you bring your office to your customers.
One of the benefits of having this type of service is being able to have a local phone number for your customers. For example, as an independent contractor, plumber, insurance salesman, etc., your office may be in one town, but the majority of your clients are in three towns in the next county. Having a local number for each of the towns your customers reside in, eliminates the need for them to make a long distance call when trying to reach you. Having a local phone number is beneficial to your business in numerous ways. Virtual phones enhance the benefits even more.
*Local number = easy access- When customers see a local number, they associate that with your business being close to home and readily available whenever you need them. It gives them a sense of confidence in your company knowing they are just around the corner.
*No long distance numbers for customers- Customers are more likely to choose a company with a phone number that is local to their area. By using virtual phones and the services they offer, you can increase the efficiency of your business by making your business more appealing to clients.
*Convenience- Clients want convenience. With virtual phone services and phone numbers in your client’s areas, the local leads you receive from promotions, advertisements and the yellow pages can increase dramatically in just a few short weeks.
Virtual phones and offices work together you to provide you with all of the tools you need to make your business a complete success. From making appointments to following up after the close of a big deal, these services add convenience as well as professionalism to any business.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Time Management Strategies for Attorney’s to Increase Productivity
Time is money no matter what your profession, but lawyers deal with many duties at one time. Successful multitasking is not necessarily part of the curriculum for law school. Organization is the key to improving productivity in a legal office. Time management for attorneys is paramount because the details are critical. Lawyers can use tips and tricks to improve their skills and adapt a time-efficient lifestyle.
Good Morning Sunshine
The early bird gets the legal worm, as they say. Start the day earlier to get some personal chores out of the way. Even just one hour will give you time to exercise and avoid spending part of your workday at the gym. As you sit and eat breakfast, go through the to-do list for that day and plan. Create a travel route that makes the most efficient use of your time. For example, whether you have to pick up court documents or your dry cleaning, schedule the trip at a time you will be in the area.
Organize by Assignment
Time management for attorneys means good organization skills. Create a template to help structure time for new cases. When you get a client, break the workload down by task and objective. Create lists of questions that need answers for during investigations. Develop a workflow chart that every person working on the case can refer to while doing his or her part. Add deadlines for tasks as much as possible. Even better, delegate and have a secretary or paralegal do this for you.
Don’t overbook your time. Instead, outsource work when you can. This could be case related items or just general office management. A live virtual receptionist is a cost-effective approach to managing the phones, for example. Save your valuable time for supervision and fire prevention.
Create Virtual Offices for Lead Generation
A lawyer spends years in school learning how to interpret the law, but that doesn’t bring clients to the door. Most attorneys need to spend some time looking for business, especially in the beginning. Technology offers a solution to this problem through telecommuting.
Virtual offices are the new-age way to handle time management for attorneys. A virtual office allows you to hire someone to do the legwork and marketing without spending the time or money on a physical location. Setting up virtual offices will allow you to micromanage the situation via the Internet or phone. That frees up time to deal with the actual legal requirements of the job.
Between court visits and digging up new clients, an attorney can easily end up spinning his wheels when trying to build a practice. Time management for attorneys is a necessity in the legal business world. Utilizing the modern tools available today will help lawyers stretch their time. With proper time management, attorneys increase productivity and decrease stress to balance out their lives.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Do Detectives Use Virtual Offices?
With the advent of smart technology, it’s never been easier to take your work with you wherever you go. For some small business owners and entrepreneurs, having a portable office as well as a bricks and mortar building has always been if not a necessity, then at the very least desirable. Nowadays, virtual offices rather than a fixed location are becoming a conscious choice for many.
Most small businesses going down the virtual office route do so for cost reasons. If paperwork needs are small, it is more efficient to hire experienced secretarial help by the hour from a pool of dedicated workers. The obvious dilemma in the past for small businesses has been the lack of a fixed address. A virtual office could take you from appearing to be an unreliable, fly-by-night operation to having one of the best commercial addresses in town. Providing a mailing address, virtual phone services with a live receptionist to answer your calls, and even meeting and conference room facilities if required, it’s a huge step forward in working smart.
A major consideration for any small business owner or entrepreneur who uses virtual office services is that the privacy of their residential address is immediately protected from their clients. One particular profession that would find this obviously advantageous is anyone working within the private investigation and detective fields.
Since a detective (themselves) is their own biggest business asset and needs to be readily contactable, having a virtual assistant to pick up calls at the end of a phone line is preferable to the frustration your clients might experience at having to leave you a message and wait for a callback. Having calls and messages immediately forwarded to you is very convenient because you can take the calls you want and don’t have to jeopardize the case you’re currently working.
In addition, the occasionally sensitive nature of the work can make virtual offices the ideal solution — customers are reassured by a physical address, and home and work are kept separate.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
How Virtual Offices in Los Angeles Help Startups
Communication is the key to success for small businesses, regardless of the industry. To make the most of technological advancements, small business owners are now operating virtual offices in Los Angeles to save money, improve customer satisfaction and boost business performance.
Los Angeles is home to an abundance of businesses, and while many have set up camp in buildings sprinkled throughout the sprawling city, lots of entrepreneurs are now considering a Los Angeles virtual office to assist them with starting their business ventures. A Los Angeles virtual office can benefit businesses in many ways:
Preserve funds- Less money is required to run a virtual office because you don’t have to pay for physical space. This is advantageous for low budget businesses, and with the money saved other business improvements can be made.
Hire freelance workers- When hiring freelancers to work from home, you need not worry about vacation pay or medical coverage. This enables you to save money and invest in more help to make business operations run smoothly.
Broaden the employee pool-A virtual office can be managed from home, meaning you can hire employees from other countries and take your operations global. The choice will be varied and so will the experience of each person.
Good customer service- If customers call a physical office, there may not be anyone available to respond; but with virtual offices in Los Angeles, you can guarantee that every call will be taken by virtual receptionists. Customer requests can be answered quickly, which will create a clear line of communication with clients and revamp your company image.
Prominent business address- With a virtual office, customers will be attracted from all corners because you will be “set up” in a prestigious business location. You will get an illustrious city business address with a virtual office, and because fax services and mail forwarding are combined, you will see prompt results with fewer inconveniences.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office space includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
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Is the Recession a Good Time for Startups?
You have a viable business idea, but everyone keeps telling you to wait until the economy turns around before you move on it. A recession may seem like a bad time to start a business, but in reality it may be the perfect time for you to create your dream job. With less competition and lower prices for supplies, now’s the time to get in where you fit in. A startup is risky no matter when you lay the groundwork; success largely depends on the type of person you are, and the clarity of your vision.
In the initial set-up process, you have to be open to re-evaluation of your idea. The key is figuring out how to run your business economically. Those that are afraid of traditional investments, like stocks, will be open to new ventures if they appear economically responsible. You may have to tweak some aspects to satisfy the investors, but it’s worth it.
Technology is a resource that creates an extremely viable environment for a startup company. Utilizing virtual offices cuts major and minor costs. You won’t have to worry about employee health insurance costs when your people telecommute and work from home. Other costs, like utilities, remain affordable without the extra bodies in the brick and mortar office.
Virtual office options like virtual phone services are a great option because they allow you to conduct business from anywhere with call forwarding to cell phones, sending your voicemails to your e-mail, unlimited extensions for high call volume, and a convenient toll free number if you want to go global.
Don’t let the media deter you from pursuing your dream or trying something new. The time is now to execute your vision. Recessions occur within a cycle; once this rebounds, you want to be up and running.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
How to Make Your Company Virtually Ubiquitous
A lot of business practices have become obsolete in the past ten to twenty years. The exponential advancement of technology in the early 21st Century has made certain practices useless, time consuming and fiscally impractical. One such practice is that of searching for office space in a high demand area.
Offices in downtown Los Angeles and New York are, of course, desirable because they add credibility and an air of sophistication to a company. However, they are also extremely pricy and somewhat inconvenient; employees do not all live in a central metropolitan area, and many specialists and experts prefer to telecommute from remote areas.
A fantastic compromise that blends the ease of telecommuting with the prestige of prime office space is to establish a virtual office in Los Angeles and/or New York. A virtual office gives your small business the address (not a P.O. Box) of a location in Los Angeles and many other cities across the US and access to incredibly cheap, convenient office space and conference rooms;at the same time, it also affords your employees remote access to any media, mailing and the like that you want.
Our virtual offices also can establish a business phone line with an appropriate area code that your clients can call and connect to any of your employees, known as our Virtual Phone Services. With a live virtual receptionist your calls and faxes will be answered and immediately forwarded to you, allowing you to handle your business operations from wherever you are.
Virtual offices in Los Angeles, New York and other big cities are a fast growing trend. We offer a number of packages, from just a business number or just a virtual office address to a full package, based on your small businesses budget, needs, and ability to connect your employees to the virtual office.
Making your company virtually ubiquitous is a great way to connect to more clients and customers; to expand your employee pool to a more selective, better group of candidates; and to add an air of legitimacy and prestige, allowing your small business to expand and grow exponentially.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Business Flexibility Really Improves Your Overall Health
Starting a business can be an expensive affair. From office space, transportation, hiring employees to paying rents and wages, the list is endless. And the most crucial issue? Time. That’s right! As the saying goes, ‘time is money’, which is probably the most important when it comes to day-to-day business operations.
Problem? Nope, because this is where virtual office services come into the mix. The way we do business in today’s world has transformed with the introduction of the virtual office solution to business hardships. Now you can sit at home or anywhere in the world you want to be for that matter and run your business without the countless stress that comes with office space.
Virtual offices provide myriad business services, a permanent street address at a prestigious business center, Live Phone Answering Services, mail services, fax services, physical conference and meeting rooms and much more. Virtual offices literally take away all the stress and headache from business owners and allows them to work from home or anywhere in the world.
What could be better? This not only makes things easier for new business start-ups, but it also saves a lot of money for business owners. You can now literally go green with a virtual office. And the most important of all is that the entrepreneurs can have an improved and healthy lifestyle. Yes, such flexibility to work from anywhere improves one’s health tremendously. Since you save time on transportion and other business related things, you have more time to exercise and have a healthy lifestyle. You can hit the gym and still attend you clients phone calls, as your virtual office phone answering service forwards them to your cell phone.
All in all, virtual offices have made life so much easier and more profitable for business owners, and not to forget much healthier as well. With such services at your doorstep, you can definitely lead a much better lifestyle. Mentally, physically and, of course, financially.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Virtual Offices Are Great for People and the Planet
In an age that now seems like history (because it soon will be), employees had to commute for 20 minutes to an hour or more in order to reach their office building. All calls and materials entered this building, and all work was done within its walls. While employees often took assignments home to mull over, it was clock in and clock out, just like at a factory. These offices were paper factories.
Thanks to modern technology, there is now the virtual office solution. The Internet, along with mobile devices, eradicates the need for members of a team to have proximity. While physical meetings are still apart of the process, they seem to be getting fewer and fewer. People can talk to each other, send text messages and send documents and multimedia files from anywhere in the world.
Some smart programmers and organizers got the idea of creating a product based on the growing informal trend of using mobile media. Virtual office services are a software and the supporting company that maintain a complete environment that allows people to work in. It is a programmable structure that allows employers or the board to decide how this form of social media will operate.
A team can collaborate, like in a chat room, except the administrator sees what all is going on. There is oversight, just like in a regular office. Documents are uploaded and available for everyone to see, if that is what the office administrator desires.
Virtual offices go more than that, though. They also provide you with a prestigious business address, automatically bringing prestige to your company name. You can also use the services of a Virtual Assistant to answer all phone calls and forward them to you (great so you can go on vacation and not worry about a thing, too). There are also meeting and conference rooms available, just in case you need to meet clients at your office. And there are many other possibilities to choose from, like copy and fax machines for example.
The best part is the ability to go green with a virtual office. Gas is expensive, and saving people the hassle of community increases the efficiency of a business. It saves everyone time and money, and often helps a business to work more efficiently. It also helps you and your business leave a smaller carbon footprint, so you are also doing your part to be eco-friendly.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +
Will I Have Technology Support?
Economic times are tight for many businesses these days. Many small businesses cannot keep up with the costs of renting a brick and mortar office and paying the salaries of a secretarial staff. Unfortunately, there is still a real need for to have a live human on hand to answer the corporate phone, and for closely related clerical work. In the face of these issues, many businesses are turning to a virtual office solution to meet their needs.
One of the best ways to save money while maintaining an adequate level of service is to use a live virtual receptionist as a professional, pleasant point of human contact for your customers. Reputable virtual offices limit the number of businesses each receptionist takes calls for, so customer service will always be available in a timely manner. If customers must be briefly placed on hold, they will hear soothing music instead of being left to cool their heels in a blank silence. A quality virtual assistant will screen, prioritize and forward your calls by the criteria you set, so your highest priority calls can always be forwarded to you immediately.
In addition to the human touch of a live phone answering service, virtual assistants can forward both faxes and voicemails to your email inbox, where you can deal with them at your convenience. A virtual office solution can help manage your calendar and schedule your appointments. A live virtual receptionist may make calls for you as well as receive them; reminding your contacts to keep their appointments and helping you find new customers.
About Jim Jacques
Jim Jacques is the President of United Virtual Office, a leading nationwide provider of virtual offices for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. A virtual office includes an address at a prestigious business location in the US, live virtual receptionist, courier services and more. Google +