Virtual office
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Virtual Offices Prove Very Beneficial to Startups
It’s the 21st Century. Most all of us have virtual bankbooks, virtual music libraries, virtual address books, virtual calendars and so on down the line. So it should be surprise no one that virtual offices have finally stepped into the fold. In fact, for many young companies and startups, making use of virtual office services saves them tons of money and can really help get them up off the ground. But you may still have questions:
- What are virtual offices?
- What makes virtual office services work?
- What type of services am I availed of?
- How does a live virtual receptionist interact with me?
Let’s see if we can’t help shuffle the noise and get you some straight answers.
What It Is: The virtual office is your office, just without the physical location. You are supplied with a mailing address, telephone number, and a courteous and responsive live virtual receptionist to handle all your 9-5 needs.
Professionals: Even though the “virtual” makes this sound like some computer program, the “virtual” sense to your offices is still staffed by real, professional, courteous, responsive and helpful people. People who know you, are able to conference with you, take notes and give you messages you may get throughout the day.
Big Picture: Virtual offices make running a business so much simpler, efficient and very professional. This is especially important for a startup. When you’re still working and testing and manufacturing out of your mom’s basement and the only “official” thing about you is a PO Box, then you could really use an air of circumstance. You could be building the next Microsoft or Apple, but investors and customers are going to be turned off if your cell phone (that you never answer) is the only way to get a hold of you. Taking the virtual office road you always get a professional phone answer, you have expedient mail forwarding, fax and courier services, access to meeting and conferring facilities and so much more.
Getting your new startup off the ground is no easy feat; especially in as weak an economy as the one the globe is currently suffering from. Still you have your product, the time is now and you’re ready to unleash your vision on the world! There’s no sense waiting for someone else to invent their own version of your product first.
Virtual office services take your product to that next level.
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 +
What Exactly Is a Virtual Office Space?
Several new businesses are now switching to a virtual office space as they realize the benefits that it offers. There are those who are witness to these advantages, but are unsure of what exactly virtual office services are and hence hesitate to switch to it.
A virtual office is a service that is provided to businesses and is very useful for startups. It gives you a prestigious business address where all your mail can be sent, which is then forwarded to you. The advantage of this is that you don’t need a physical office; you can always be on the move. At the same time, you don’t need to give people different addresses or residential addresses in order to reach you. You simply give them the address of your virtual office space (in a prestigious business area) and rest assured that all your mail will reach you.
Virtual phone services area also part of the deal. This means that you have a defined office number and a live virtual receptionist to handle all your calls. All messages are forwarded to you in a timely manner so that you never miss out on anything.
There are also meeting facilities and conference facilities so that you can have all the benefits of a real office without wasting your money on it. And yes, these meeting/conference facilities are state-of-the-art, furnished and are at the same address as your virtual office address. Courier services and fax services can also be added to your package, depending on your requirements.
With this clear picture of a virtual office space, it should become much easier to decide to use one. A good virtual office services provider will always give you the details in an honest and straightforward manner, either on their website or via phone. Make sure you ask all the questions you need to while you make your choice.
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 +
The Best Home Office Design
Some people have false conceptions of people who work from home, thinking that they are not professionals and, because they work home, are not able to stay focused on work. And while the latter is true in that there are more distractions at home, the former is just not true: work at home jobs are in high demand in the technologically driven business world we live in today, and they will only grow in importance in the coming years.
Work at home professionals are able to set their own work schedule and work when they feel like, which requires time management and discipline. They work in a freer environment and thus can design their home office to their exact specifications and liking. They are also able to maintain prior responsibilities, such as watching after their kids, which can save both money and stress.
These positive attributes, however, are also difficulties. Time management, dedicated focus and maintaining an ideal work-personal life balance are all crucial to ensuring optimal productivity while working from home. Many opt for a virtual office to help with their business management and organization, as a virtual office space helps in managing day-to-day business tasks while also providing a professional image for any business. With a prestigious business address, ability to use conference rooms at that address when hosting clients and virtual phone services, where a live virtual receptionist answers and forwards all phone calls and faxes to you no matter where you are in the world, a virtual offices help work at home professionals advance their business interests and ultimately grow their ventures.
When working from home, its essential to design a very comfortable office to really get you motivated. It doesn’t mean that if you are working from your home that you have to compromise with the conditions of the house and with old traditional furniture. You need to spend some money on your home office furniture as you will spend most of your time in that room. From an organized and spacious desk to a very comfortable chair and even customized lighting to fit your eyes and preferences, creating the perfect home office isn’t as hard as you might think. And for the minimal investment both time and money you put into it, your rewards will be even greater.
Choose any furniture that is simple and fits into your budget. You can buy it new or used, or even go on sites like Craigslist to see what people are selling or even giving away. If the furniture you choose looks professional and makes you feel more professional, then you will want to spend more time in working at home without in that room, without any exterior distractions. Make sure its comfortable, looks great and really turns your room into a home office.
You can even opt for custom-made furniture that is ideal for work in terms of style and health. And if you have the option of getting a laptop or a PC, choose the former, as it will enable you to take your business everywhere and not have to continually transfer documents and email between different computers. This is also why a virtual office is great it enables you to manage your business from wherever you are and seamlessly integrate your online business world into your home office business world.
No matter what happens, make sure your home office is designed how you want it to be to ensure your happiness and ultimate productivity.
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 +
We Are Celebrating U.S. Small Businesses This 4th of July the Virtual Way
This 4th of July we at United Virtual Office have decided that we all need to take a step back and really honor what drives are economy: small businesses. Without them, our nation would be nowhere near where we are today and the economic downturn would have held much more grave consequences. Yet, because small businesses drive innovation and spur job creation, we are on the road to recovery and, as a nation, know that we will bounce back.
So what exactly is a ‘small business’ ? They are those businesses that employ less than 100 people. In the US alone, the small business sector employs over 50% of the total country’s workforce. This makes small businesses very importantplayers in the USeconomy. Small businesses are the backbone of creativity and production. With more than 60% of all jobs coming from small businesses, there is no doubt that this sector plays a crucial role in stabilizing and stimulationUS economic growth.
According to the Small Business Association, small businesses hold 10 times more US patents than large businesses. In addition, they claim over a 50% of success rate at the four-year mark, and more than half all small businesses are home-based.
So, if more than half of small businesses are home-based, how do they have such a high success rate? Well, small businesses owe their success to the way they start-up; most do not rely on traditional methods of starting their operations such as setting up offices in exorbitant premium locations. In contrast, many small businesses rely on different means to save capital and be able to invest in other parts of their business, with many now turning to virtual offices for help.
Apart from low cost and flexibility, virtual offices provide numerous benefits that are perfectly catered to entrepreneurs and startups.
- Save on Rent:Virtual offices enable small businesses to establish presence anywhere without having to pay for offices that cost thousands of dollars to set up.
- Reduced Overhead Costs: Small businesses that utilize a virtual office space do not pay for numerous bills associated with physical offices, such as electricity, equipment, cleaning, parking and an Internet connection.
- Live Virtual Assistant and Virtual Phone Service: Administrative support with virtual offices eliminates the need for full time employees becausea live virtual assistant and virtual phone services can handle all of your calls at a fraction of the price.
- More Flexibility Means More Productivity: Virtual offices allow for flexibility and comfort, thereby stimulating productivity and increasing your bottomline.
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 Can Set Working Moms Free
Entrepreneurial moms offering professional services from their home offices are leading the way in strategies for Virtual Office Spaces. Working from home can be reliable method of income for certified professionals or independent freelance contractors, but it does require the most reliable industry tools. With all the crucial factors of managing a home office, you are entitled to have the best possible virtual office space support at your business disposal, to maximize your work-life balance.
Virtual Offices can offer you the flexibility you need to run a successful home office at your convenience, without sacrificing your family priorities or personal time.
Home office networking, and maneuvering a massive digital environment, is made easy for you with Virtual Office services, including fax forwarding, professional business stationary, and prestigious mailing locations. With such services available for you, your home address does not have to serve as a mule for all your business materials.
Managing your telecommunications with clients is made simple through the Virtual Phone Services that we offer at United Virtual Office. By setting up a custom business phone line and voice mail, you can guarantee your clients a professional reception. This could be the first impression you are going to make on a potential client, so you want to ensure that you are going to be provided with the best possible virtual phone service. You can run conference calls, manage your contacts and access your telecommunication records at any time.
Your entrepreneurial confidence can get inspired with solutions for your Virtual Office Space. You can successfully create more time for yourself through our professionally managed services that can make the best of your business potential, and minimize the time you have to spend on organizing your virtual office 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 +
Why Businesses Need to Find Their Perfect Employee
In the current economic and business climate we find ourselves in, finding and retaining that perfect employee we all love so much has become much harder. There are strategies, however, to find great employees and then, once that happens, it’s up to you to keep them happy and make sure they don’t leave.
Putting your company out there online and utilizing job recruitment websites and bulletin boards is the first things you want to consider. Most prospective employees are turning to online job searches as their primary tool in finding new employment. Job seekers these days are all too familiar with employers referring them to their websites for an online application. So many of them do not inquire at your place of business anymore. Take advantage of this trend by maintaining a high level of online saturation to attract that perfect employee.
The business employee of the modern world is also very interested in flexibility. Looking at virtual offices with a live virtual receptionist ensure a high level of flexibility, and with many mothers returning to the workforce, flexibility is huge. Companies that let the employees pick their shifts and are flexible about hours and childcare issues tend to produce happier and more productive employees. And when this happens, your retention rate shoots through the roof.
There are always good employee prospects out there, its just about finding what’s perfect for you and your business. Keeping them in this high turnover environment is a difficult challenge, but one that if conquered will give your business a high level of success. Many companies simply embrace the fact that employees are not going to stick around forever, so the mood and environment at the business project that onto the employee. This in turn contributes to a high turnover rate, one that we have seen in the past five or so years. Businesses that go out of their way to ensure employee happiness do much better than those that accept turnover as inevitable. Small things go a long way with workers and you should not underestimate the impact a small gesture can make.
Taking advantage of the online job seeking trend, being a flexible employer and maintaining a happy work environment are small things that can go a long way to building a successful company.
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 Unanswered Phone Calls Only Hurt Your Business
There has been some very good news on the economy lately. Things are slowly improving; however businesses are still struggling and cannot afford to lose any customers. Also, as technology continues to advance and the Internet is available almost everywhere due in large part to smart phones, there is an expectation from customers that the business should be available to them all the times and from wherever they might be.
Virtual Office Answering Services is a great and affordable option to provide access during off business hours. Many small businesses cannot afford a phone answering service around the clock and the same time cannot afford to lose any customers. Statistics show that over 30% of customers that call after hours will not leave a message. No business can afford not having access to more than a third of their customers. The magic pill to resolve all these issues is phone answering services.
Live phone answering services provide an affordable alternative to have a live person answer to customer issues when the business owner is not available. Since such services are available online, the business owner has access to their customers anywhere, anytime. Quite often customers leave a business due to how long it takes to have their problem resolved. With phone answering services, businesses can respond to any outstanding issues quickly; thus increasing the customer satisfaction.
Technology has made customer service the backbone of success for a business. Through the Internet word travels fast and no business (especially small businesses) can afford to lack in customer service. A virtual phone answering service for a small business is no longer a want but a need, since growth and survival might depend on it.
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 +
Phone Answering Services: Why Virtual Offices Are Perfect For All Professionals
A Phone Answering Service is a telecommunications package offered by Virtual Office Services. You can either avail an automated one or a live phone answering service where a real person answers your virtual office phone.
A phone answering service is very useful for all kinds of professionals.
- Accountants: Phone answering services have features like voicemail, reception answering capabilities and no physical handsets. They even offer local telephone numbers which makes it perfect for accountants who want their clients to know that they provide the absolute best customer service.
- Attorneys: Attorneys need to be as professional as possible. Without the space and resources for receptionists, they now have the option of opting for a Live Virtual Receptionist to handle their phone calls all day, everyday. This is especially important when their in court because their phone will be answered, messages will be taken and the attorney can call their client when they are finished with the hearing.
- Doctors and Dentists: The main focus for doctors and dentists are their patients. This means that they have almost no time to attend to calls. A virtual phone system ensures that they don’t miss any of their calls, even when they are tending to a patient. It also cuts down on costs because Virtual Phone Systems are much more affordable than having two or more receptionists.
- Small Businesses, entrepreneurs and startups in all industries: Small businesses and startups are not ones for big budgets. Hiring a staff, regardless of how big, requires space and budgets. In those early days, a phone answering service can help them save on both. It also helps those who travel, as they can be on the road (or on vacation) and still be “open” for business, which is extremely important for existing business, new opportunities and eventual growth.
Along with various features, phone answer services also have flexible packages to suit your needs. They’re not expensive, don’t take up space and are efficient thereby making them ideal for almost any professional in any industry.
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 +