With today’s predominance of remote working, freelancing, and entrepreneurship, working from home is more common than ever before. The advantages are numerous:

• No more commute: save on gas, reduce your carbon footprint, spend more time actually doing productive stuff rather than traveling to the office

• Most home workers can write off some of their housing costs on their taxes, as a portion of your home is dedicated to working.

• It offers a better work-life balance, affording you more time at home with the family.

• It opens up the possibilities of working with companies and individuals in other cities, states, or even countries.

And there’s more, but you get the picture. If it were ten or more years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of effort. Access to better technology and the changing landscape of global enterprise has cracked the playing field wide open, helping us in equal measures to save our sanity and save the planet while we’re at it.

However, if you’re running a home-based business, there are some drawbacks that can’t be ignored. These include:

• Constant distractions from family and friends

• Ready availability of time-wasting activities

• Children or pets vying for your attention

• Door-to-door solicitations

On the business side, there are more serious concerns:

• You are using your home address for your business, meaning it is published and anybody can just ‘drop by’.

• You likely have no dedicated meeting space in case you have to meet with a client or a supplier. This means you’re relegated to meeting them at a local coffee shop or another public place.

• You can’t grow your business; if you need to hire more people, where are you going to put them?

• You will be using your personal, mobile, or home phone for business calls, which can be an issue if you share a line with your kids or somebody else in the house.

A virtual office can effectively solve all of these issues, and help you present a more professional image to the people you are trying to impress.

What is a virtual office?

A virtual office is just about exactly what it sounds. It is a physical place, a dedicated office building with real people staffing it that can handle a short list of your most basic business tasks, including giving you a business address, handling your business mail, taking and forwarding your business phone calls, and more.

The top 3 reasons why your home-based business needs a virtual office include:

1. Present a professional image: with a dedicated business address, you will look like the serious business you are, and not just “a person working from home”. While most of your clients might not care, it may limit who you do business with if you don’t have a solid business home base.

2. Admin assistance on-demand: Have your business line answered by a real person, who can either screen your calls or forward them to you wherever you are. Accept and send mail at/from the business address, and have a virtual assistant to take care of sundry tasks when you’re busy.

3. Meeting and conference space on-demand: If you ever need to meet with a client or supplier, your virtual office can accommodate your needs with meeting room rental by the hour, by the day, or by the week.

4. Have the ability to scale as needed: if your workforce suddenly grows, a virtual office gives you flexible options, with office space on demand, coworking space, and so much more.

5. Reduce overhead: No matter if you are just one person or a team, a virtual office helps you save money on office overhead by offering many of the great benefits of a corporate office without the lease, furniture, and equipment expense.

Conclusion

If you are an entrepreneur, freelancer, or small business owner, you know how important it is to stay lean. A virtual office allows you to grow your business without all the expense of a conventional office space, supporting your professional development with professional office services that you can afford.

If you live and work in the Weston, FL, area, drop by Lakeside Executive Suites for a tour today. We’d love to tell you more about our virtual office services, and how they can help you increase productivity and support your professional image.