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Virtual Offices – Providing Support For Home Businesses

Many people that work from home find it difficult to manage all aspects of their business by themselves. Unfortunately many business owners simply do not have the capital to be able employ or accommodate an administration team to provide them with support. Virtual offices offer affordable support solutions for people that run home based businesses. Work can be outsourced to virtual assistants who have the skills and knowledge to handle both administration and customer service tasks.

Virtual office services

Virtual offices usually offer a telephone answering service, where a business’s calls will be directed to a virtual receptionist, rather than to the business owner. This enables business owners to get on with other more productive tasks. Using a virtual receptionist will also make your business look bigger and more professional.

They will answer your calls using your personalised business greeting and learn information about your business so they can answer your customers’ queries. If you are not available to speak to a customer, the virtual receptionist will take a message which will be sent to you via email or text message.

Giving out a home address to clients can often look a little unprofessional, giving them the wrong impression about your business. Combat this issue by using a virtual office’s mail forwarding service. You will be able to use the virtual office’s address as your own, which looks far more professional to customers, especially if the office is based in a prestigious area. The mail forwarding service will also help to increase efficiency, as you will no longer feel like you have to wait around at home to sign for important letters and packages.

Virtual offices also carry out other general administration work for businesses such as invoicing, scheduling and faxing. Some companies even offer extensive services such as social media and project management.

Benefits of using a virtual office

Virtual offices provide an affordable solution for home business owners that require additional support. Rather than having to hire an employee who would require a wage and other benefits like sick and holiday pay, you can pay a monthly fee to receive the services of a virtual office. Not only is this more cost efficient for small businesses, but it is also less of a commitment. Virtual offices usually offer small contracts or provide services on a month to month basis, preventing you from having to tie yourself into long contracts.

Working with a virtual office will also help to increase productivity. You will have much more time to spend on sourcing products, marketing your business and planning expansion as you will not be sat at home taking your customers’ phone calls all day.

How to choose a virtual office

When it comes to choosing a virtual office it is important to find one that will take the time to get to know you and your business. It is important that the virtual receptionists and assistants are able to represent your business in a way that you are happy with, as they will be the people speaking directly to your customers. Do a little online research and you are sure to find a company that is capable of representing your company to a high standard.

Outsourcing work to a virtual office will mean you have more time to work on the parts of your business that you enjoy! — License: Creative Commons image source

Conclusion

Virtual offices enable home businesses owners to grow and develop their company with a supportive team behind them at just a fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house admin team. Everyone needs a little extra support sometimes and this is something that virtual offices are there to provide. Not only will a virtual office benefit a home based business in terms of support, but it can also make them look more professional, creating the right impression on customers.

About the Author: Written by Megan Hunt who likes having home business support

Should I Work from Home? Pros and Cons

If you’re growing tired of the rat race and yearn to set up your own business, doing something you love and making money from it, you’re far from alone. And in this time of recession, with people still being made redundant left, right and centre, more and more people are choosing to set up shop themselves.

If you’re thinking of doing the same, one question you will probably ask yourself at some point is: should I work from home?

work from home
Image by Jelle Vandebeeck

It’s true that working from home can be enormously beneficial in terms of satisfaction, productivity and time spent with the family, but it is not without its pitfalls. So you need to think long and hard before deciding whether you want to turn a little corner of your house into a home office or workspace and shelling out for office furniture or equipment.

The pros of working from home

No boss

If you’re working from home, you’re either your own boss, or you have permission from your boss to work away from the office. Either way, you don’t have the feeling of someone over your shoulder all the time.

Make your own working hours

Some people are far more productive outside the general office hours of 9-5. If you do your best work early in the morning, or later in the evening, or even in the middle of the night, you have the freedom to set your own hours and work when you’re at your most productive.

Save the environment (and some money!)

If you’re not using you car ever day on that daily commute, you’re helping to cut down on fuel emissions, and reducing your carbon footprint. You’ll also be able to save money, without the cost of petrol or train fares to worry about, or the cost of renting an office.

Spend more time with your family

If you’ve not got a horrendously long commute to worry about every day, it gives you more time to spend with your family. You’ll be able to get the kids ready for school, maybe even walk them to school, and have breakfast as a family in the mornings. And in the evenings, you’ll be there to listen to their stories about their day, and have dinner as a family too.

Work in your pyjamas

If you find you’re much more comfortable in your pyjamas, or tracksuit trousers and a slouchy jumper than you are in tailored work suits, then you’re probably not alone! And if it makes you more productive, there’s no reason why you can’t wear whatever you’re most comfy in when you work from home.

The cons of working from home

Distractions

When you’ve got no boss to worry about and you’re working at your own speed, it’s easy to get distracted. The TV, the cat, making a cup of tea, surfing the Internet…. all of these things can command your attention, making it hard to focus on your projects.

Procrastination

When you make your own hours, it can be very easy to think, “I’ll start in an hour or so”. Then that can quite easily turn into a couple of hours, and before you know it, it’s lunchtime!

Lack of designated work space

Not everyone who works from home is lucky enough to have a home office or workspace. Many people simply don’t have the room. This can make it hard to focus, especially if you have to move, for example if you’re using the family dining table, or if there are other people around during the day.

You can’t get away from it

Unless you are lucky enough to have a designated study, studio or other workspace that you can just shut the door on at the end of the working day, you’ll find it hard to escape your work. And you might also feel that you have to work all hours of the day or night to please clients, particularly if you’re a new business. When you work at home, this is all too easy to do.

Trust signals

Even in today’s age of ecommerce and doing business online, many people still like to see a bricks and mortar shop/office. So not having one of these could be detrimental.

In many cases, working from home can be hugely rewarding, whether you have the option to do so from time to time, or you run your own business. However you do need to be careful to strike the right work-life balance, not let your work impinge on your family life and vice versa, and make sure you maintain a sense of structure. You might need to be strict with yourself in terms of procrastination and the hours you keep too, especially if you’re easily distracted!

Author Bio: If you’re thinking of working from home, it’s a good idea to have a home office, which should be tidy and organised, and allow for maximum productivity. ForMyOffice are a leading supplier of office and home office furniture, as well as lighting and desk accessories for all your office needs.

Eight Ways to Stay Productive When You Work from Home

Regardless of what you do, if you work from home, the name of the game is productivity. If you telecommute, your boss is likely to be watching you like a hawk. Did he make the right decision when he let you work from home? If you freelance, your clients don’t care about your hourly rate? Did that fifty dollar project really take me three days to complete?

Yes, if you work at home, productivity matters. It pays your bills, it keeps you out of the office and it allows you to have a social life. Therefore if you work from home and you notice that your productivity levels are not as high as they could be, chances are you are suffering. And if you’re telecommuting, chances are you are about to get fired. Before the hammer drops, here are eight highly effective tips for getting more done in less time when you call your office home.

Don’t Become a Recluse

Work from home jobs don’t necessarily require you to literally work at home. Most can be performed effectively at a local café or a quiet bar. Getting out of the house on a daily basis is essential if you want to stay sane, let alone productive. If you find that you get more done when working in your home office, focus on going out in the evenings. Isolation and productivity never go hand in hand.

Figure Out How to Tackle Procrastination

Procrastination seriously harms productivity and problems with productivity can spell death for any work at home career. There are a lot of techniques that can be employed to fight productivity and what works for you is something that you are going to have to find out on your own.

For me personally, I have found that the most suitable weapon against procrastination is to devote a single hour each day to doing the tasks that I hate. Those tasks still take a while to complete, but they always eventually get done. Procrastination is more than capable of leaving tasks uncompleted forever if you let it.

Limit Your Time

If you’re paid per deliverable rather than per hour, your goal is always going to be to get the most done in the shortest amount of time possible. An important part of doing so is limiting the amount of time that you allow yourself to complete your tasks.

If you give yourself the entire day to do something, chances are it’s going to take the entire day. Whereas if you limit yourself to only spending four hours, you are far more likely to fit that task into that timeframe.

List Your Tasks

When you work from home, you don’t have a boss scheduling your day and this is certainly a good thing. Unfortunately however, unless you take on his role, your productivity is going to seriously suffer. Sitting down in the morning with no real plan is a recipe for both procrastination and missed deadlines.

You should start each day by listing the tasks that you hope to complete. They should be ordered according to their importance and completed according to their order. And any tasks not on your list should be avoided entirely. Provided you follow this simple system, you will get your most important tasks completed every day. You also won’t waste time on those that are unimportant.

Work Where You Work Best

If you think that you are going to get a lot done while sitting on your couch with your feet up, think again. High levels of productivity require that you sit up straight and that you are not surrounded by distractions. A home office can fit the bill perfectly but some people find that they get more done outside of their home.

You should experiment with working in different environments and you should establish where you are at your best. Regardless of whether it’s a café, a bar or your aforementioned home office, the important thing is that you establish where works for you.

Disconnect (or Pretend)

Most people that work from home do so with the aid of a computer and an internet connection. An internet connected computer however is home to all manner of distractions and you might be surprised by just how many hours you can kill telling your Facebook friends how great it is to work from home.

If you have the discipline to avoid the recreational side of the internet then by all means do so. But if like most, you’re a bit of a social media addict, you might find that you can get a lot more done if you only connect to the internet when your work actually requires it. Out of all the tips in this article, this is probably the easiest to apply. It also happens to be one of the most effective.

Tell People You’re at Work

If you have friends, a partner or a young child, it’s important for you to let them know that when you are working from home, you actually are working. You can’t do housework, you can’t do babysitting and you can’t go to the pub at two in the afternoon. Just because you don’t have to be at your office by nine am, that does not mean that you don’t have deadlines.

Take Care of Yourself

Finally, take care of yourself. Many people take working from home as an excuse to take less showers, to stay up until four in the morning and to practically live on their couch. Showers keep you fresh, exercise keeps you energised and eight hours sleep keeps you in straight thoughts. When you work from home, there’s no boss to get angry at you for looking like a corpse. That responsibility is therefore left to you. Get some fresh air, dead people don’t work from home.

About the Author: Brian Wills is a freelance writer and blogger. Through his posts he talks about SEO and internet marketing and believes that alexa ranking service is the most reliable page ranking service for checking the credibility and popularity of websites.

Tips for Being Productive Outside the Office

If you have ever had a job working in an office, then you have probably heard plenty about productivity. Many bosses take great care about finding out how productive potential employees will be when looking to hire new staff, and productivity is often a big part of performance evaluations.

Productivity is simply a big part of having a job; however, productivity should extend outside the office. After all, going the extra mile is what separates the good employees and the excellent employees. But it can be difficult to be productive outside the office if you do not know how.

business productivity tips

Separate You Work and Social Life

One big part of being productive outside the office is separating your work and social life. One good way to help keep these two sides separate is to get a second phone line. This does not mean you need to carry two phones, since the SmartPhone app Line2 can work as a second phone line on a SmartPhone for business calls. Separating your phone lines can help you to seem more professional and productive.

To further keep your work and social lives separated, avoid making many friendships that might interfere with your work. It is fine to have a colleague or two that you get a drink with after work sometimes, but it might be a problem if you find yourself invited to your employee’s daughter’s birthday party.

This is a matter of common sense and personal judgment, since all business relationships are different, but it’s generally not a good idea for business associates on different levels of “the food chain” to get too close. This not only can cause people to become suspicious if you or your friend gets a raise or paid vacation, but it can also lower your productivity dealing with the issues that can arise.

Working From Home

Another situation that can give people trouble is when they have to work from home or a hotel, such as finishing and sending in a report while on a business trip. It can be distracting and demotivating if you do not have to get ready or dressed to go into work, so many people find themselves becoming less productive in these situations.

The best thing to do is pretend you are at work. When you wake up, take a shower and get dressed. This gets you in a working mindset. Set a strict schedule and follow it, and avoid all distractions such as television and friends. Also, make a list of things to do every night for the next day. This will help you keep track of exactly what you need to do.

If there is one thing that impresses employers and future employers, it is an individual’s ability to be productive outside the office. It is often the deciding factor when an employer is deciding between applicants for an open position or when deciding who they need to lay off. Increasing your productivity outside the office is a great way to put yourself ahead of the competition.

About the Author: Jessy is a stay-at-home mom and business blogger.

The Beginner’s Guide to e-Commerce

In the current economic climate where employment opportunities can be scarce at best establishing a small business can seem like a tempting proposition. Being self-employed can free an individual from the endless process of job hunting and provide much desired independence.

However, establishing a business is not as straightforward as some may presume. There is a lot more involved in creating and managing a business than may at first be imagined. The owner of the company is not only responsible for day to day operations but also for managing the business itself.

A working business idea

In many respects coming up with a working business idea can be the most difficult part of establishing a new business. The majority of entrepreneurs approach this problem from one of two very different directions: having a business idea and creating a business based upon it or simply having the desire to create a business with a working business idea yet to be created.

Either way, caution should be exercised. In the first instance the prospective entrepreneur must ensure that there is a market for the business and that they do not simply press ahead with the idea based upon passion and emotion. This would be a sure route to failure.

In the second instance the prospective entrepreneur should ensure that the business idea that is adopted is of course viable but they should also ensure that they have sufficient knowledge and enthusiasm for the product. This is essential to succeed.

The basics of e-commerce

Once the newly established business has a product with which it can proceed, the next challenge is to create the infrastructure necessary to sell the product. This generally starts with a website. For more sound business cases this may involve designing and building a professional website or having one created on the business’ behalf.

If the desire is to simply test the water before committing significant resources many companies have found eBay to be a good starting point. Products can be advertised and sold on eBay for minimum investment and maximum return.

Of course the business should ensure that it has sufficient stock to be able to sell to clients, whether using eBay or a professional website. Moreover, the business should consider supplies of consumables including cardboard boxes, jiffy bags and other packaging. The business should also consider the creation of address labels, packing slips and invoices.

Business development

It is always a fine balance between failing to take advantage of a market and overreaching too soon. The business should be ready to take full advantage of the market if it is available and the sale of the product is successful.

However, the business should also ensure that the infrastructure is in place to support this expansion to prevent overreaching. The company should aim to expand progressively in a controlled and calculated manner. By doing so, the owner of the company can ensure continued success and this will allow the business to grow naturally.