A virtual office is a great way for your small business to save on the cost of
renting an office space. Here we walk you through the 5 easy steps to setting up
your virtual office in under an hour:
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Mapping out your strategy
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Obtaining a virtual business address
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Selecting a virtual assistant
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Training your virtual assistant
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Getting a virtual phone system
Step 1: Map Out Your Strategy
Not everyone’s virtual office will look exactly the same. Perhaps you do have a
physical office, but would like to complement it with virtual assistants. Or,
maybe you truly are starting with nothing and want to go 100% virtual from the
beginning. No matter what your ultimate goals are, it helps to map out your
strategy before diving in.
Possible elements of a virtual office include:
How many of these things you wish to utilize will decide how much work is
involved in getting started.
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Step 2: Obtaining a Virtual Business Address
No virtual office is complete without a professional address to receive mail at.
As we noted in another article on virtual offices, you don’t have to actually reside at the business
address your mail gets sent to.
Services like NYMail.com, for instance, allow you to give key contacts and
business partners a prestigious, professional-looking 5th Avenue business
address. Using such a service, you can:
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Check by phone to see if mail has arrived
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Get automatic e-mail notifications when mail has arrived
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Take advantage of extended pick-up hours
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Have your mail automatically and confidentially forwarded to you at home
A $20.00 business pricing plan is available which enables business owners to
obtain a prestigious business mailing address in 24 hours. Theoretically, you
could sign up today and accept mail at your new, professional address the very
next day.
Step 3: Selecting a Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants are one of the most popular virtual office fixtures of all.
However, beyond the idea that a virtual
assistant would
be helpful to have, many of us get stuck in the process of actually finding and
hiring one (much less training one.) Fortunately, dozens of different companies
offer virtual assistants on flexible pricing models. Here are a few we
recommend:
Note: Your life will be made infinitely easier by requesting a VA (from
AskSunday or any other provider) with excellent command of English.
Step 4: Training Your Virtual Assistant
The actual hiring of a virtual assistant can be executed in under five minutes.
The next, slightly more time-consuming task is training them to perform to your
expectations. Here, it’s all about specifics.
Because you will not be supervising a virtual assistant the way you would an
in-person assistant, instructions, rules and procedures are a must. Below are a
few articles with virtual assistant training tips:
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How to get your virtual assistant to schedule your doctor’s appointments – Ramit Sethi
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The Holy Grail: How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check Email again – Tim Ferriss
No matter which tasks you envision a VA carrying out, you’ll need a similar but
modified list of rules for them to follow. In this way, the virtual assistant
you hire will cease being merely an assistant and become your assistant.
Step 5: Getting a Virtual Phone System
If you’ve owned a ‘real office’ before, the idea of getting a phone system
installed in an hour might sound like a pipe dream. But with a virtual phone
system, the fantasy is a reality. A virtual phone
system lets any business get up and running in just a few quick steps. All it
takes is:
That’s it. Following these simple steps, you and your team will be able to take
calls and receive voicemails and faxes from
anywhere you happen to be.
Get Down to (Virtual) Business
Now that you’ve hired an assistant, acquired a virtual business address, and set
up your phone system, your virtual office is in great shape. You’re ready to get
out there and start making waves in the business world.
