Time without number, you have heard the buzz word, virtual office, but you don’t know what it really is. You have asked a brother, a sister to explain it to you yet you can’t get the workings. Just then you remembered Google is your friend – gone to ask him, but all what you read in the SERPs sounded Greek. “Why can’t I get this virtual office thing” you’re wondering.

Welcome.

Don’t be distressed. Trust this piece when it says, it won’t be using registers and big grammar which is the real reason you have been searching all the nook and cranny, yet can’t understand functionally what virtual office providers do for a living.

Remember Prime Business Africa is first off, a business online newspaper, so pledged, it would always give you tips to move your business to the next level.

Very well then!

Benefits Of A Virtual Office 

If you are running your business from home or a café or anywhere convenient for you but want to assure your clients and prospects that your business is a professional operation worth their while, engage virtual office providers to hand you all the resources you need. It is cheaper. It is more flexible than the traditional office space and facilities. It is more effective, providing you with so many benefits that you probably could not have afforded on your own.

Sounds magic? It shouldn’t. Today’s virtual office services have got all these and more truly-ready-to-serve resources in their offing. If you are an entrepreneur or a startup, you can have full access to the resources of a fully-fledged office plus cognate benefits such as growing your networking, free-for-all platforms for advertising your business as well as access to like-minds to interact with. All these are without the actual cost or stress of owning and furnishing a magnificent office setup befitting of your status.

Honestly, a virtual resource centre can give your client and prospects the reputable impression that you have the luxurious and complete office wherewithal to do business with them because they can actually see you accessing all the resources.

Memory lane in a bit: In the earlier years of my career, I worked with a Public Relations agency that serviced a very big and popular telecoms brand. But our physical office was not really befitting for such network giant. There came a time when the client insisted they wanted to visit us to get to know where their brand is being serviced from. We didn’t know what to do. Our office didn’t look that good. But then we devised some means to edge away. We would tell them what mattered was delivery and not the physical space.  So we continued to dodge whenever client pressured that their reps would be coming around. We won’t just let them! We don’t want to lose such a big account. Our tactic worked for some time only for the client to come back insisting they still wanted to visit.  They grew impatient…so impatient and ‘wicked’ to trace the office address and came unannounced. Let me spare you the details but we lost the account, as a result. Subsequently, client described us as a “backyard PR agency,” “brains-missed road.”

I didn’t share this story for the sake of it. I did, so that you can learn from it as today’s entrepreneur.

Importantly, if you are not a businessman, at least, be a good ambassador to SHARE this article with people around you. You might just be helping a startup or even an already existing business operating from one small hole unbefitting of the songs he sings marketing the business. He needs to see that hiring a virtual office actually creates good perception and better positioning for his brand.  If my agency had engaged the serviced office providers, client would have come in, looked for what they thought was lost and found it.

How The Virtual Office Works

As an entrepreneur or a startup, you don’t have to be in the popular, status-lifting location to own it. You can actually use the address and the facilities just with the virtual arrangement. Why? Because your client and prospects need to know you have the capacity to carry their business. Yes, because we judge success in this part of the world by big structures and big cars.

Beyond providing you with the office space, you also get full access to other fantastic facilities such as a front office executive, official phone line, office furniture…every resource you can think of in the regular office setting. Interestingly, what you pay for all these services is just a token compared to the huge cost and overheads in the traditional office system.

Therefore, you or someone you know needs this virtual arrangement particularly because your client and would-be customers tend to be wary of dealing with businesses that are run from the “backyard” to borrow from our PR client.

No matter how intelligent and professional you may be, it does not instil confidence that you are going to be around for a long time if your client does not get the feel of luxurious office when he visits. The virtual office innovation affords you the trust.

Similarly, would you really want to do business with a client that invited you over to a hotel lobby for a meeting? Be sincere. Of course not! Meetings are private and confidential discussions so should be held in serious venues – your office. That way, your customers can stake an arm that they are taking the right decision by choosing to work with you.

Conclusion

What virtual office providers have done is to look at A.L.L. the headaches you would have faced in your business and prescribed the very right analgesics up to small but big things like where to plug your laptop without needing your own cables and USBs because these little resources are right on your desks.

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