Building a Cheap Virtual Office

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David K Chan asked:




Building a cheap virtual office is one of the best ways to keep expenses to minimum, especially if you’re just starting your company. I’ve been running a small business now for the last two years. Having come from BIG corporate America, with companies like Oracle and HP, I’m all too familiar with the excesses that companies spend on office buildings, receptionists, phone systems, private rooms, and expensive “lunch meetings.”

In fact, one of the startup companies that I was with back before the dotcom bust raised over $100M in venture and capital financing. In just five short years that company went from the darling of the mobile industry to the Silicon Valley graveyard. Part of the reason why was the excessive waste in fancy offices and stylish furniture.

A cheap virtual office is truly an idea whose time has come. Cheap technology has really helped to create an environment where you can truly have a “virtual company.” I can attest to that because I am in the Internet marketing business and my team is literally in northern and southern California, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Costa Rica. The team is made up of personal assistants, webmasters, graphic artists, audio specialists, and business development people.

Some of the necessary tools of a cheap virtual office include: a computer(s), Internet connection and a phone or phone system. The computer and Internet connection are pretty obvious. But the phone system may not be for the uninitiated. What do I mean?

In my company, we all need to communicate with one another. And, we have many clients who call for scheduling, technical support or marketing purposes. How do we look like a BIG company on a cheap virtual office budget?

In our case, we implemented a virtual PBX solution that is really inexpensive, yet incredibly flexible and expandable. This system allows us to have one 800# that all customers call into and a live or automated attendant who answers the call. The call can then be routed to an “employees” extension, which can be either a mobile #, landline # or just directed to a voice mail box.

The virtual PBX solution is by far the best, most-cost effective solution that I chose out of about 10 different products. If you’re investigating cheap virtual office products, you’ll eventually be looking at virtual PBXs. This is one product that I strongly recommend you consider.

Now, as I mentioned, I am an Internet marketer. And, yes I am an affiliate for this product. But, I am also a huge proponent of small business. And, I want to help other small businesses to succeed, as well. I believe small businesses are what keep America strong.

We use this product on a daily basis. We’ve customized it with our clients’ music on hold songs, custom greetings, special extensions and more. On my personal blog “RingCentral Tips”, I will give you tips on how to make the best of the virtual PBX solution.



How To Run A Successful Virtual Office: Some Important Tips

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Alexander Gordon asked:




Working Together While Sitting On the Opposite Side of Earth:

Running a successful virtual office has become an increasingly popular phenomenon all over the world today. This is a kind of arrangement where the focus and the mission of the businesses are similar but it is not necessary that the personnel also sit in the same office. On the contrary, there is no limit to the physical distance and the other person may be sitting on the other side of the planet.

Virtual Relationship:

To run a successful virtual office, you need to understand the reasons why the virtual office is becoming so popular. In fact, whatever kind of business you are running, no matter how small it is, you need someone else also to operate it smoothly. Every business demands different types of skills, and you need different personalities to fulfill the requirements. While running a successful virtual office, one may get ideas for the marketing of products from a person whom he might never meet in his life face-to-face. So, the virtual office is building virtual relationships also.

Avoid Feeling of Isolation among Employees:

To run a successful virtual office, you have to adopt certain specific strategies. Here are some of them to help you in running your virtual office. The first and very important point to keep in mind is that your employees should never feel they are isolated. How can you prevent this from happening? For this purpose, you should organize conferences at regular intervals so that the employees get an opportunity to interact with each other, thereby getting rid of the feeling of loneliness. Here, making use of Web conferencing services will be very useful.

Develop Good Working Habits:

To run a successful virtual office, you have to train your employees for working habits also, along with making them expert in technology. Methods of training employees for the virtual office are different from that of centralized offices. In addition to learning the proper use of the technical items like laptops, PDAs, and other similar things, they also have to learn how to make best use of their time. They have to learn the art of not mixing the things like house cleaning and child care with their office work.

Have Faith in Your Employees:

Another important requirement for running a virtual office successfully is trust between the employees of different levels. As the physical distance is a great barrier in seeing them more often, you have to manage all the office work by developing a sense of mutual faith. The communication should be more frequent and there must be no confusion regarding the work at hand at the deadline to finish it.