Sunday, October 19, 2008

How To Run A Successful Virtual Office: Some Important Tips By Alexander Gordon

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.

Alexander Gordon is a writer for http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com - The Small Business Consulting Community. Sign-up for the free success steps newsletter and get our booklet valued at $24.95 for free as a special bonus. The newsletter provides daily strategies on starting and significantly growing a business.

Business Owners all across the country are joining "The Community of Small Business Owners” to receive and provide strategies, insight, tips, support and more on starting, managing, growing, and selling their businesses. As a member, you will have access to true Millionaire Business Owners who will provide strategies and tips from their real-life experiences.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Gordon

Friday, October 17, 2008

Why do I need a virtual office and what does it consist of? By Dan Frontgate

As a Frontgate managed company you will receive a secure environment in which to do business. The site will allow you to gather the data, store it, manipulate it, map it and share it.

This website was built for property investors and includes all of the tools necessary to make your data mining easier than it was before. For example, say you can only find your foreclosures by reading the legal advertisements in your area. Our IT department can and has created a script to bring those properties in the system on a weekly or monthly basis. This script is created for each area that you are going to chase property. You then are given a license for the code. This reduces the need for support personnel to type the information into a database. A savings for you in the long run.

With a push of a button you can give the locator a route with all necessary information attached. Another button and you have turn by turn directions from your location to all properties you want to visit. These directions can be printed for the locators.

Each property has its own property folder to store pictures and notes regarding the home. You will always know the status of each house.

We continually improve our code and the functions needed to keep the business of purchasing financially distressed real estate running smoothly.

When you become a FrontGate managed company you will receive any updates for your site. A full demonstration of the power and convenience of the virtual office is available upon request.

So do yourself a favor and contact us to discuss a relationship. www.frontgateconsulting.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Frontgate

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Virtual Office - Setting Up Yours By Frank Owen

Basic Virtual Office Supplies

To set up a virtual business you'll need to establish a home base. Most virtual offices are home offices created from a spare room, a corner in the family room or some other location. Your home office may consist primarily of your laptop computer. There are certain items you will need to have to start a virtual business. These are described below.

Computer – You have to own a computer to have a virtual office. Many prefer using a laptop because laptops are easily transported from one location to another. Yet another option is having a desktop in your home office and reserving a laptop for travel. You don't have to invest in an expensive laptop. A lightweight model will likely suffice for most home based virtual offices.

Docking Station – This is a must have if you have a laptop. This will allow you to plug your laptop into a standard keyboard, monitor and printer when you are working from your home base.

Printer – While you may get away without a printer when starting your virtual office, eventually you will probably find you need to print documents. The easiest way to do this is with a laser or inkjet printer. Print quality is often best using an inkjet printer, but laser printers are much faster. Keep this in mind when considering the volume of material you may need to print.

Internet Connection – You need to be able to connect to the Net when operating a virtual office. Dial up will cause you headaches, so be sure you have a broadband connection of some sort.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on the virtual office for more information on virtual office management http://www.virtualofficetutor.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Frank_Owen

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Successful Tips For Virtual Office Cleveland

1. Setting Clear Objectives

Virtual office allows many people to work on a business on the opposite side of the world. It is important to have clear objectives because everyone is not in the same environment that everyone can feel each other and align yourselves every hours. Without a clear objective, you'll find everyone's work will easily went out of direction. Correcting mistakes will be very hard to communicate as well. So, make sure the clear objective is communicated!

2. Relationships!

One of the disadvantages that virtual office will face is relationships. Everyone will not be seeing each other and being with each other during work hours. When there's no relationship, there's nothing to tie each other and form good team work. Remember to build relationships with each other. You can create some space for personal issues and let everyone to get to know each other

3. Good System In Place

You got to have a good system and step by step instructions for everyone. If you don't have this in place, it will be to late when you discover any mistakes.

Monday, October 13, 2008

How Can a Virtual Office help my Home-based Business? By Mark Stone

This article is intended for the professional who operates out of their home or for the home-based business owner. The convenience and economy of working from home is nice, however, as the business grows the need for an office located in a “business location” will increase. However, you currently cannot afford nor need all the services of an executive suite or serviced office. A virtual office is an excellent alternative which can save up to 78% of the cost of traditional office services.

Perhaps you’ve experienced the following scenarios:

“Where is your office?”
During your initial sales meeting, you’ve convinced your prospect that you understand their needs and you look forward to providing a solid proposal of your solution to their problem. They like your personal professionalism and your team appears as competent as the competition. Then they look down at your business card and ask “where is your office”? Suddenly you are on the defensive, only as big as your 8’ X 10’ home office. You can’t afford nor need to invest in office space, but what can you do? A virtual office is an excellent way to present a bigger company presence. Suddenly you are as large as a multi-story office building located in the prestige business districts of your city.

“We don’t do business with home-based companies.”
You are able to deliver the goods or services the large Fortune 100 company needs but they don’t do business with a “home-based” company. How can you arrange for your phone and mail to be serviced with an address within the “business district”? A virtual office is an excellent way to present a prestige address for your home-based business.

“Let’s hold the meeting at your office!”
You must host a team collaboration or presentation meeting. Any gathering with more than 3 or 4 people in attendance typically requires the meeting to be moved out of the “office room” and into the kitchen or living room. Such a casual environment takes away from the professionalism of the message you are delivering. A virtual office facility will provide quality meeting room facilities at an economical fee when compared to hotel conference room rates.

The availability and use of white boards or audio-visual equipment to support the meeting activity might be limiting at your home office. Parking might be difficult to accommodate. You will need to provide restroom and possibly beverage or food service which means time and effort to prepare. Wouldn’t want your boss or prospect to see the “dirty laundry”! A quality virtual office facility can provide the equipment and facilities needed for most any meeting or presentation, often these are provided at no additional cost with the meeting room fee.

What is a Virtual office?

A Virtual office is a service provided by many full serviced or executive suite providers. Typically, they will offer Virtual office services with options so that you purchase just the services you need to enhance your business. Examples of these packages are:
  1. Virtual Office Address Only - Includes the use of a prestigious business address, receiving mail, handling and receiving shipments, signing for mail when authorized.
  2. Full Virtual Office with Live Answering - Includes all features of the package above plus live personalized telephone answering, including voicemail box with remote access.
  3. Full Virtual Office with Live Answering and Conference Room Time - Includes all features of the package above plus conference room time.
Additional services should include mail forwarding to an outside address or call forwarding to an outside line (home office or mobile phone).
A quick checklist of the features/benefits you should expect to find with a quality Virtual office provider would include:

* A prestigious address
* Upscale contemporary reception area
* Fully-equipped conference rooms and common areas
* Access to an association network to support your out of town activities
* Professional receptionist to greet clients
* Full administrative and secretarial support services
* Kitchens with complimentary beverage service and vending machines.


If you like the economy and convenience of working out of your home but have encountered the need to present a professional, business “storefront” you now know there is an alternative to the traditional business office or executive suite lease options. The Virtual office from an Executive Suite provider is that alternative.

Additionally, if you find an increasing need to host meeting or presentations and want to provide a more professional option outside your home or the neighborhood Starbucks and a more personal option than a hotel, you now know there is a solution. The Virtual office from an Executive Suite provider is that solution.

Mark Stone writes for various websites including Meridian Business Centers a provider of executive suites and virtual offices in Dallas, Texas.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Virtual Office Cleveland Is EveryWhere

I just did a Google search on virtual office cleveland and realized that there are many websites that are about virtual office cleveland. So if you are trying to find a virtual office in cleveland, you don't have to worry too much.

To setup a virtual office, the cost is not expensive at all. However, it does takes hundred of dollars to start one. If you want extra services with more features such as virtual receptionist, virtual assistant, virtual voicemail, virtual answering service and virtual phone system, you definitely got to pay higher.

From my opinion, I think virtual receptionist and virtual assistance might be not so important to me. But if I'm planning to sell products online, getting virtual voicemail, virtual answering service and virtual phone system will probably bring me more sales and profits.

Virtual office are very different from serviced office. Serviced office usually is much more expensive which looks like real traditional office. It take thousands a month to rent one. They have conference room and office tools which are available for use immediately.

Have fun choosing virtual office cleveland.

Friday, October 10, 2008

What Is A Virtual Office Assistant? By Renee Flowers

A virtual office assistant is really just a more descriptive way of also saying virtual assistant. This is a growing profession with the ever growing use of the internet for full time jobs. Virtual office assistant is sometimes confused with a secretary, and this could not be more wrong, a virtual office assistant does so much more than a secretary could imagine.

So What Is The Difference Between A Virtual Office Assistant And A Secretary?

To begin with a virtual office assistant you never see, you strictly work with them over the phone and on the internet, where for a secretary they are a full on contact worker, using a desk and computer, phone and all. A virtual office assistant also has to know how to do a variety of work not just filing papers. A secretary would most likely be in charge of filing and answering the phone and such tasks. Also a secretary will be an in office person that a employer would have to give benefits and do paperwork on, where as a virtual office assistant basically never exists on paper, and does not receive any benefits, like insurance.

So What Might I Expect If I Work As A Virtual Office Assistant?

A virtual office assistant is really a “jack” or “jill” of all trades. Virtual office assistants will be asked to do a variety of tasks and should be qualified to do most anything done with a office or business. They may be asked to make doctors appointments, any secretarial work, accounting, and even web page design. To become a virtual office assistant you must first have training, this training should be prepare a you for a position.

So How Is The Pay?

The income depends on the company you are with, what jobs you are performing, and most likely how good you are at what it is that you are doing. Usually though a virtual office assistant can expect to make about $45 an hour on average and depending on the employer. Your hours may also vary depending on your employer, so make sure it’s talked over and clear. Annually if you do make $45 an hour you can expect to make about $12,960.

For More Information on Virtual Assistants Please Visit After Hours Assistant

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Renee_Flowers