A Better Virtual – USA Virtual Offices

QUEENS, NY—Tax season is approaching—and that means different things for different people. But for accountants, it means a flood of business and perhaps more demand for office space.

The Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows is catering to the officing needs of accountants with an offer that invites them to sample the business services free of charge and without obligation. It’s all part of a special promotion at the Queens virtual office space provider.

“I’ve discovered that there are a lot of professionals with practices in other parts of New York—even in other states—who have occasional need for office space in Queens,” says Jack Blumner, executive director of the Queens virtual office center. “Like attorneys, for example. We already have more than 30 attorneys affiliated with the office center. Some of them are full time tenants, but the majority of them only use the office space on an as need basis.”

The Queens virtual office center opened last October. It is the first executive office suites facility in the borough of Queens and has already attracted more than 100 tenants, most of them are virtual office tenants.

“If you don’t need an office on a full-time basis—and many accountants don’t—you can become a tenant at the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows for as little as $39 month,” Blumner says. “It isn’t surprising to me that there is such a strong need for flexible and economical work space in Queens. The economy of Queens is not the economy of Manhattan. It is basically comprised of tens of thousands of small businesses, and not all of them need or can afford full-time office space.”

MIAMI—It’s still January. That means if you haven’t already made New Year’s resolutions for your small business it’s not too late. Indeed, it’s never too late to make a change.

Intelligent Office Miami wants to help you with your small business resolutions, and offers five tips to help you enjoy a more successful and profitable 2012. I’ve laid out those five resolutions below and added in some of my own virtual office and small business perspectives.

1. Have an exit strategy: An exit strategy is the ultimate goal for a small business owner and should drive all decisions moving forward. Is your exit strategy retirement? Acquisition? A six-figure salary? Once determined, you can develop the road map to get there.

From my perspective as a small business owner, an exit strategy is vital. At some point, we’ll grow older and want to retire. What will we do with the business? Sell it, hand it off to a family member? Consider the possibilities now.

2. Review your business plan: A business plan is not a write-it-and-forget-it document. It’s a living, breathing blueprint for your company’s success. Fine-tune it based on the realities of the current economy and what you need to accomplish in order to get to your exit strategy.

I’ll admit. I haven’t dusted off my business plan in some time. But it’s important to go back and review the plan. Maybe you’ve strayed from it and need to get back to it. Maybe you’ve strayed from it and need to expand the official vision in light of opportunities.

3. Go virtual: From virtual offices to virtual phone systems to virtual assistants, there are resources out there in the virtual world that can help you work smarter, faster and more efficiently. Your job is to make sure you are leveraging them.

“Outsourcing decreases overhead, streamlines operations and leaves more time to focus on the core competencies of your business,” says Allan Sirotkin, managing director of Intelligent Office Miami, a virtual office and professional support staff company.

“Virtual offices provide a professional address and on-demand office space, but Intelligent Office expands that concept by adding Intelligent Assistants—a highly trained support team providing concierge-style business services. Virtual assistants enhance productivity without expensive employee-related overhead.”

4. Get into the cloud: No, not your head in the clouds. Rather, tap into the power of cloud technology for your small business. Cloud computing has a lot to offer small businesses on the go. By transferring company documents to a cloud, they can be accessed from virtually anywhere and by anyone who is granted access. It’s important to understand the different types of clouds, so do your homework, Sirotkin says. Many cloud providers, including services provided by Intelligent Office, feature software applications as part of their cloud computing service.

5. Network: Networking is more than passing out business cards. It’s about building relationships, Sirotkin says. Chambers of Commerce and professional organizations offer resources for meeting new customers or vendors.

When I first started my small business, I had to sow plenty of seed and wait for a harvest of new business. Now, I get referrals based on relationships and networking. Never underestimate the power of networking, whether in person or virtual. Make networking work for you.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—The virtual office industry is seeing apps roll out right and left. There’s apps to search for virtual offices, apps to make phone calls, apps to send faxes. Now, Davinci Virtual Office Solutions is getting into the mix with an app for all that—and more.

Davinci Virtual, a leading provider of virtual office services, just announced its first-ever smartphone application. Davinci Virtual’s new app works for Apple iPhones, iPads or iPod touch devices and is available in the iTunes store at no charge.

The new mobile app is versatile, allowing Davinci Virtual clients to make VOIP calls from their mobile phone over Wi-Fi, among other things. With the iPhone app, Davinci Virtual customers can view, receive and send faxes from anywhere in the world, as well as search and listen to voicemail messages, and make conference calls from their mobile phone via the Davinci Virtual platform.

“Our new iPhone app allows our clients to interact with the Davinci Virtual platform with ease from their mobile device—anywhere,” says Martin Senn, COO of Davinci Virtual. “An Android version is already in development and slated to be released shortly. Davinci continues to develop applications that power the mobile work environment.”

The app should make it easier for Davinci Virtual clients—of which there are more than 10,000—to find virtual offices on the go. Davinci Virtual offers virtual office space across the U.S., Canada, Europe, Central America, Asia and Australia. Altogether, the company offers more than 850 virtual office locations including major cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Houston.

Davinci Virtual clients can also opt for live receptionist services, prime business addresses and flexible meeting spaces—instantly—online. Other services include toll-free telephone and fax numbers, digital voicemail, electronic fax, email, unified messaging, voice and video conferencing, voicemail to email, fax to email, voice to text, professional live receptionist services, virtual assistants, live call answering, find me—follow me, live web chat, outbound calling, customer service, appointment scheduling, and order taking.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA—Allied Offices just opened its virtual doors to a new virtual office space in Beverly Hills. This is an ideal location for any entrepreneur that wants to be in the heart of the luxury retail action.

Allied Offices’ Beverly Hills virtual office is right across the street from the famed Saks Fifth Avenue. Of course, this virtual office also happens to be surrounded by a myriad of additional exclusive retailers and restaurants, giving small business owners a prime office address in a prestigious neighborhood.

Allied Offices is known offering small businesses everything from virtual office phone systems to meeting spaces to live virtual receptionists via professional answering services. What’s more, Allied Offices is known for doing it at a fraction of the cost of traditional office space. Allied Offices’ Beverly Hills virtual office services include:

• a local or toll-free telephone and fax number
• electronic fax
• digital voicemail
• unified messaging
• voice conferencing
• voicemail to email
• fax to email
• screening and
• live telephone answering services
• virtual assistants
• appointment scheduling

The Beverly Hills virtual office also offers something a little more unique: the TelAssistant Remote Receptionist phone answering service. TelAssistant is a professional answering service designed specifically for the needs of small businesses.

The TelAssistant Remote Receptionist screens calls, takes messages, and forward callers in a professional and courteous manner. The remote receptionist will also schedule appointments, process orders, and follow guidelines set by the business owner. Business owners train professional TelAssistant receptionists to handle calls the way they would train in-house employees.

WAYNE, NJ—NBS may not be a household name like some of its competitors (read Phone.com and RingCentral) but the veteran company is winning some attention from the industry’s leading magazine.

TMC, the publisher of Internet Telephony magazine, has named NBS V.o.I.C.E. as a winner of its 2011 Internet Telephony Product of the Year Award. In fact, it’s the third year in a row that NBC has received recognition from Internet Telephony.

“I am happy to grant NBS our 14th Annual Product of the Year Award. The editors of Internet Telephony have verified that the company’s Hosted V.o.I.C.E. service displays quality and innovation, plus it provides a solution for real needs in the marketplace,” says Rich Tehrani, CEO of TMC. “I would like to congratulate the entire team at NBS for their commitment to advancing IP communication technologies.”

I have to admit that I wasn’t familiar with NBS V.o.I.C.E. until I just found out they won the virtual PBX award. So I decided to educate myself. NBS V.o.I.C.E. (Voice over Internet Communications Exchange) is a feature-rich hosted IP solution. This virtual PBX is custom designed to address the specific communications needs of small to enterprise-sized businesses.

What do I mean by that? Well, this virtual PBX provider offers custom features and is provisioned as a hosted IP PBX, network-based solution as well as a SIP trunk replacement service. It also offers productivity enhancing functionalities, promises it is easy to maintain and upgrade and offers feature expansion to multiple locations without interruption of service.

Here are some of the features:

• VoIP telephone service for the home or home offices
• Uses any home phone with an NBS provided Analog Telephone Adaptor
• Full range of residential phone features provided through V.o.I.C.E
• Voice Mail Management tools included
• Suite of mobile and follow-me features available
• Includes 911 and directory listing
• Free Analog Telephone Adaptor (ATA)
• Easy to use Voice and Web Portals

“With our recent network expansion and interconnection activities we have made this award winning service available to more end users in more cities nationwide,” says NBS President Russell Markman. “As a tool for increasing employee productivity and reducing total telecom spend, it is a vital piece of the communications puzzle for companies in today’s economy.”

NEW YORK—Phone.com is getting kudos from a major industry magazine. The cloud-based communications service provider’s Virtual Office product just won the 2011 Internet Telephony Product of the Year Award from TMC’s Internet Telephony magazine.

“I am happy to grant Phone.com with a Product of the Year Award. The editors of Internet Telephony have verified that the Phone.com Virtual Office suite displays quality and innovation plus provides real needs in the marketplace,” says Rich Tehrani, CEO of TMC, publisher of Internet Telephony. “I would like to congratulate the entire team at Phone.com for their commitment to advancing IP communication technologies.”

In case you aren’t familiar with Phone.com Virtual Office, the product gives your business a professional image using virtual PBX phone system. Phone.com Virtual Office is powered by advanced VoIP and SAAS technologies—and it’s affordable. You can tap into this virtual office product for as little as $9.88 a month.

Here are some of the stated benefits:

• Professional: Present a professional image
• Unified: One phone number to reach all locations & staff
• Efficient: Automate incoming call handling & forwarding
• Convenient: Check voicemail by web, email or phone
• Cost-Effective: No hardware to purchase or maintain
• Easy: Sign up online and begin using in minutes

“For well over a decade TMCNET has been the leader in promoting and covering the VoIP industry,” says Ari Rabban, CEO at Phone.com. “We are very pleased to once again be recognized by them for our innovative Virtual Office product suite.”

SAN FRANCISCO—Intelligent Office is betting on San Francisco virtual office users in early 2012. The virtual office company just announced plans to open a San Francisco site in March.

Here’s the company’s thinking: San Francisco is one of the most expensive places in North America to rent office space. That’s not a subjective opinion. Commercial real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle did the research.

Intelligent Office figures adding new virtual office space in San Francisco’s sought-after downtown Pine Street location will be a big hit. The company is specifically targeting Bay Area entrepreneurs, professionals, and businesses access. And it’s not just the flexibility of an affordable mobile office Intelligent Office is providing either. Intelligent Office also offers trained staff.

“The opening of the San Francisco office not only expands our presence in California, but also provides a great location for the multitude of entrepreneurs and start ups in the Bay Area,” says Ralph Gregory, founder and CEO of Intelligent Office. “This location will allow us to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and professionals by offering them services that help them focus on starting or growing their business without extra staffing or service costs.”

From Intelligent Office’s perspective, small businesses are seeing growth and need to work smarter than ever to thrive in a competitive business environment. Virtual offices offer several benefits, including reducing overhead costs. Virtual office users can tap into shared conference rooms, remote receptionists, and virtual assistants.

“We look forward to opening and are thrilled to be bringing industry-leader Intelligent Office to this vibrant entrepreneurial community,” says Wilson Tandiono, president and CEO of Intelligent Office San Francisco. “The Bay Area is a hub of innovation and cutting-edge business, and the focus is on value creation. Our easily accessible downtown San Francisco location will enable us to reach this community and help it grow. By delivering customized services and innovative workspace solutions, we aim to add value for our clients—allowing them to work smarter and better.”

The 100 Pine St facility is scheduled to launch operations in March 2012, and to host a grand opening in April. Intelligent Offices is headquartered in Boulder, Colo. And has 50 franchises across the U.S. and Canada.

The duel between Opus Virtual Office and Davinci Virtual Office Solutions continues into the New Year.

Davinci Virtual is offering our popular Live Web Chat absolutely free for 90 days when you purchase any Davinci Virtual Live Receptionist package. This is quite the bargain at a more than a $150 value. Meanwhile, Opus Virtual Offices is waiving its set up fees during the month of January. And Regus is offering $59 virtual office specials in some markets.

“I’m confident Opus VO is already the best value for businesses to acquire a total virtual office solution,” says Yori Galel, CEO of Opus Virtual Offices. “So I’m thrilled to offer our January promotion which eliminates all set up fees. A prospective client only has to contact Opus for a promo code valid for the entire month. For only $99 out of pocket a new virtual office can be fully operational, often in one day.”

What is a virtual office? Different vendors use the term differently. Some include a phone number, a virtual receptionist, and a street address. Others offer a more complete package. Opus Virtual Offices falls into the latter category. Either way, virtual offices save small business owners plenty of bucks over traditional office leases while offering a professional image.

If you are looking to spruce up your professionalism in 2012 without breaking the bank, call a reputable virtual office provider who offers a suite of services, such as virtual receptionists, that can grow with your firm.

LOS ANGELES–This is the time of the year when virtual office providers talk about how much growth the industry has seen in the last few years, how much momentum lies ahead, and how their virtual office brand contributed to the success. So why should Alliance Virtual Offices tell any different story? Actually, Alliance Virtual Offices does have a unique story to tell.

Alliance Virtual Offices has been pointing to the synergies of combining people, place and technology to deliver flexible work environments for the past year. The virtual office brand has also been predicting that the virtual office will stymie the growth of traditional office space in the years ahead.

For its part, Alliance Virtual Offices attributes the growth to all those trends—and its new, improved services platform. Alliance Virtual Offices posted what it calls “extraordinary year-over-year revenue and client growth” thanks, in large part, to its platform that delivers all the hottest virtual office solutions, including live receptionists and virtual phone systems, at competitive prices.

“People are not going to work anymore, work is coming to them, wherever they happen to be. Why endure the waste, costs and stress of constructing new office structures when Alliance Virtual Offices makes it easy to work anywhere at any time?” asks Frank Cottle, founder of Alliance Virtual Offices.

There’s plenty of evidence that the modern mobile professional agrees with Cottle’s take. Alliance Virtual Office’s steady annual growth rate not only reflects broader virtual office market growth, it also reflects the value its improved platform offers customers. With its new platform, Alliance Virtual Offices has seen increases in revenue, customers, office locations and live receptionist packages sold.

And with mobile workers in mind, Alliance Virtual Offices is getting ready to roll out a host of new products to support the mobility trend in 2012. Cottle says, “We saw 2010 as the year to build a new foundation, 2011 to prove that foundation and 2012 will be the year where we expand our product offering, our office footprint and our own team to deliver even more value to our customers and members.”

NEW YORK–Virtual law offices are gaining momentum, and may be part of the solution to the impending changes with the United States Postal delivery system.

Let’s review the problem: The United States Postal Service, or USPS, figures it can save $2.1 billion by laying off 28,000 workers, closing hundreds of mail processing plants and ending first class mail delivery. Indeed, by May the USPS may put an end to next-day mail delivery service in a move to keep its doors open. There has also been talk of shutting down Saturday delivery, and some post office locations are closing altogether.

Legal Web Experts, a Web design firm that specializes in developing Web sites for attorneys, is predicting many law firms that rely heavily on prompt mail delivery could find their practices in trouble without a reliably fast mail service. Think about it: Without next-day mail delivery, the delay of important court papers, documents, evidence and other materials could cause problems and even cost an attorney their case.

Enter the virtual law office. By deploying virtual law office software, much of the problem is solved.

“Sending and uploading documents via the internet is beginning to affect every industry, including legal,” says Ryan Nelson, Director of Operations for Legal Web Experts. “All firms must seriously consider having a digital document sending solution—or, at the very least, have a solution that can be implemented quickly should they need it.”

Virtual law office systems let attorneys set up a client login portal on their Web site. Clients can log in over a secure connection to download and upload documents, send completed forms, securely message their attorney and even make payments online. It’s faster and efficient than even overnight mail.

But the benefits of the virtual law offices extend beyond mail service. The virtual law office also gives lawyers increased flexibility at their office and the ability to work from anywhere. For clients, completing, sending and reviewing forms and documents online—no law office visits—is also convenient.

And here’s the good news: Web designers can integrate a virtual law office platform into almost any Web site in less than two weeks, or even days. So if your law firm has been considered a virtual law office solution, now may be the time to step up your investigation of the possibilities and prepare for the potential USPS changes.