Davinci Virtual

As sales begin to pick up in the new year, do you want to be stuck with your phone ringing off the hook, and no formal answering service helping?  I know I don’t!  I am hiring a virtual receptionist to help catch all of the overflow calls, help me with prospecting, and make my shadow look a little bigger than it really is.

A virtual receptionist can make a good impression for your business at a fraction of the cost of hiring, training and employing a live receptionist at your office.  When clients call there will be a “real” person on the other end of the phone, instead of an automated machine, giving customers, partners and potential clients the impression of a well run office.

When comparing options for virtual receptionists, make sure you are getting the best deal possible.  Some of the benefits that you shouldn’t do without include the following key benefits:

• Hold music – If your client must be placed on hold they listen to melodious hold music – not dead air.
• Multiple Line Phone Systems – A live receptionist helps you avoid missing calls or forwarding callers to voicemail. Your virtual receptionist only answers the phone for you and up to four other businesses.
• Calendar/Appointment Scheduling – our virtual receptionists can help you get organized and stay organized as a point of contact for your meetings and appointments.
• Order Processing and Customer Service – your customer may have found you through your website, but they want to talk to a real live receptionist before ordering.
• Live Outbound and Sales Calling – we can actively partner with you to grow your business, find new clients, and remind clients of appointments.
• Voicemail and Voicemail to Email – You can get your voicemail via email or on your phone, whichever you prefer.
• Fax to Email and Professional Email Address – get your faxes in your inbox and never worry about having a fax machine again.

Anything less that those options above would be below quality service, and not worth your money.

Choosing a virtual office partner can be tricky, there is a plethora of companies to choose from, and each company has different options for their clients. There is a lot to be said about choosing a virtual office that isn’t right for you and this could cause a lot of stress and undue problems. So with all of the different options, how do you know which company to choose?  Here are some tips in finding the right fit.

First, find companies that offer virtual offices in your area, and see if you can set up a tour.  It is critical that you understand what you will be getting, in terms of quality and appearance. The key to choosing the right virtual office is ease of operations and a smooth flow of daily activities.  Make sure you see everything running smoothly.

Next, determine whether you would like to use an automated system, or whether you would like to have “real” people answering your phones and working your office.  Personally, I think that automated systems are cold and impersonal, and could really hurt your branding in the long run if customers begin to feel this way as well.

Once you have determined what type of company you would like to work with, make sure that the company will let you choose the type of secretary or call assistant that suits you. Just like hiring an employee, hiring a virtual partner that matches your needs is critical.

Next, look at the services the company provides. Things like a centralised fax number, providing a physical mailing address as well as other services like being able to acquire ‘virtual meeting’ software as well as the option to rent a physical boardroom for those all important meetings and presentations that demand the physical presence can really clinch the deal.
Lastly, analyze the cost per partner, and compare services to find the most cost appropriate client.  I am not stating that the cheapest company is the best option, but make sure you will be getting your money’s worth.

As we usher in 2009, many of my clients are beginning to weigh the pros/cons of moving out of their home offices and into a “real” office space for their business.  For many of these clients, a virtual office would be a better fit for their needs, however, some still do need a permanent operations headquarters that is their own.  Here are some of the benefits of utilizing a virtual office:

• Not having to battle through traffic every day to commute to and from your office space.
• Monetary benefits from savings in gas, wear and tear on your car, business clothing, and lunches out
• Reduced stress (always a good thing)
• Increased opportunities to hire part-time or contract workers

On top of those benefits to you, a virtual office can also offer:

• A prestigious office address you may not be able to otherwise afford– not just a P.O. Box but a permanent address for your business at an office building.
• Professional reception service, without renting a physical office. That means someone will be there to greet your guests for business meetings.
• Meeting and conference rooms that you can use as needed without having to rent out office space full-time.
• All the amenities of a larger office, including fax machines, break rooms, copiers, and other services.
• Mail and package pickup and delivery – you no longer have to rearrange your schedule so you don’t miss the UPS truck.
• Mail Forwarding / Shipping Services

All in all, virtual offices provide a professional presence in a commercial environment, for a fraction of the cost of a permanent office space.  Not a bad deal for small entrepreneurs…

As the holidays approach, many businesses stay open on December 24th, and 26th, even though these are not truly busy working days.  If your company is staying open, one of the best things you can do on these days is to take advantage of the slow days by running your spring cleaning a few months early.

Here are some tips to help you clean up and get organized this holiday season.

• Sort and file all your old paperwork.  If you have files that are not in use or have not been in use for over 30 days, if is time to find them a home.  Start a short-term filing system that will help you stay organized into the new year.
• Move out all of your technology (i.e. phones, computers, laptops, scanners, etc) and wipe down all of your surfaces.  You will be surprised how much dust and dirt collects under all your devices, and if not cleaned properly, it can actually hurt your equipment.
• Clean out your computer files.  Go through all of the files on your computer or laptop and see what can be deleted or filed.  One option is to purchase an external hard drive for your computer - it acts like a digital storage device for computer files.

By cleaning out your office now, instead of waiting until the spring, you can start your year off fresh and clean, and prepared for new business.   Good luck, and Happy Holidays!

One of the challenges that small businesses face is staffing.  A lot of the times, small businesses don’t use the standard hiring mediums of large corporations.  Instead, they rely on networking and job referrals to find the right person for the job.  An article on BusinessWeek.com’s website insights as to where to turn to find the top talent out there looking for a job.  Here are their suggestions.

“Small businesses should enlist their current employees as recruiters, essentially selling friends and contacts on the benefits of working at their company,” says Chris Collins, associate professor of human resource management at Cornell University’s school of Industrial & Labor Relations, for BusinessWeek. “Take the price of that ad you were going to run and give it to the person who identifies the candidate who eventually gets hired,” he says. “You’ll probably get a better pool.”

Small businesses can also find quality candidates by working with local and state universities, and recruiting graduating students.

Begin the hiring process before you need to fill a position.  Don’t wait until you are desperate for a  or your business could suffer.

Lastly, utilize the social networks, like LinkedIn, to find the right professional for the job.  There is a wealth of information available to you out there, along with a large amount of potential candidates looking for a job.

Do you have tips for a small business owner?  Leave me a comment and I will  include them in future posts!

I am very excited!  One of my favorite business authors, David Allen, is coming out with his third book, “Making It All Work,” a book that takes his popular “Getting Things Done” model to the next level.  This new book focuses on helping people who fall victim to common organizational “syndromes,” such as the micro-manager, or the person who just does what is necessary to slide by, by offering a full-fledged road map for processing life and work in tandem.

Fast Company calls David “one of the most influential thinkers on productivity,” for his innovative steps to help us excel in dealing with our daily commitments, the unexpected, and the information overload that threatens to drown us.   This new book addresses the following key points:

• How to figure out where you are in life and what you need to succeed
• How to be your own consultant and the CEO of your life
• How to Move from hope to trust in decision-making
• When not to set goals
• Harnessing intuition,spontaneity, and serendipity
• And lastly, why life is like business and business is like life.

David’s last book, “Getting Things Done” has become a international hit, with his system being implemented in many Fortune 500 companies today.  I am excited to read this new book, and once I am finished I will come back to give you all a summary of what has been learned.

Budgets are tight right now, that’s a fact.  Companies are looking to save money any way they can, and often that means cutting the number of employees they have.  Well, here is a neat way to save some money by adding a member to your team.  A “virtual” member, anyway.  Adding a virtual assistant to your team is a great way to get more done in less time, by delegating tasks to him/her.  As a business professional, your time needs to be spent out on the streets or on the phones and in front of clients, not with your head tucked in a filing cabinet or researching.

Here are some ideas for tasks you can have your virtual assistant complete that could save you money in the end:

• Telemarketing
• Filtering in-bound lead calls
• Follow up calls
• Outbound cold calling - This is a great task for a virtual assistant, just make sure they can handle the communication aspects of the job.  If you are confident in his/her skills, give them a simple script, tell them what you want done with the good leads, and unleash him/her on your prospect list.

Along with business help, there are also several money saving benefits of a virtual assistant, including:

• Renting desk space/office space for him/her
• Technology costs.  My virtual assistant doesn’t need a laptop or computer, or other technological devices, because he/she will already have his/her own.
• Benefits, health insurance, and vacation time.  I don’t pay for any of it anymore!

All in all, there are a lot of great money saving benefits to hiring a virtual assistant.  Weigh the benefits for your business, and you might decide you need one too!

I was looking online this morning and I found a statistics website that lists out the average cost of office spaces in California and Oregon.  On average, businesses are paying anywhere between $1.57 - $2.09 per sq. foot, per month, so a business operates in a 1,900 sq. foot office (like my own) you would be paying on average anywhere from $2,983 - $3,971 per month on office rent, and that is for a relatively small office.  Wow!  That is a lot of money to spend each month, not to mention the utility bill, insurance costs, and other operational costs that come with running an office.

One alternative to running a physical office, is to open up a Virtual Office, an online service that gives businesses an “office” with all of the necessary equipment and services when they need it without the hassles of actually running an office full time.  With a virtual office, you can work from home or on the road, and then use the office space for client or business meetings.

Some of the benefits that a virtual office provide includes:

• Use of a prestigious office address, not just a P.O. Box, but a permanent address for your business at an office building.
• Professional receptionist services
• Conference rooms for meeting with clients
• Standard office amenities (i.e. fax machines, break rooms, copiers, and other services0
• Mail and package pickup and delivery, and forwarding services

At the end of the day it is important to understand what is critical to spend money on, and where you can save a little bit.  If you can pull back on your operating costs, you can allocate that money elsewhere, potentially to a business-driving budget instead.

Right now is a time of tightening the financial belt…shoring up our reserves to get ourselves through this tough market. But, there are places where cutting spending can actually cut resources and reduce income. Here are some places where skimping just doesn’t make sense:

• Employee pay and benefits…yes, this is likely your greatest expense, and there may come a time where it is necessary to cut pay…but don’t go here first. You need talented, committed people who will bolster efforts and push you through this economy and into more successful times.
• Time-saving or resource-saving devices…this includes blackberries, satellite Internet connectivity cards, high functioning laptops. All of these technologies give you more flexibility, create less dependence on a specific office space…creating virtual employees.
• Marketing…and this is with a caveat. Don’t just throw money into the marketing budget. Find a quality company that can run a targeted campaign. Investigate social media and it’s marketing abilities. Use your dollars to reach niche markets, not broadcast to the entire world.

How about the opposite? Where should we avoid spending extra dollars?

• Offices..don’t waste money creating a physical location if you don’t need to…today’s customers are completely comfortable with virtual offices…and you save a ton on overhead.
• Spendy marketing materials…unless this is an industry standard for you, there are many amazing printers that can generate great quality work from your home office. If you need bulk printing, check out Kinko’s for simple print jobs.
•  Staff…while this may seem to contradict the above list, the fact is, employees are expensive, so unless you need them, don’t add them. Outsource and subcontract specific tasks and save on employment taxes by doing so.

The one thing that you can invest that costs resources, but not money, is your time. Times such as these require extra networking and face time. Get out there and make connections. Of anything on the list, it is likely to have the greatest return.

After polling members of the small business community about what the hardest thing about business travel was, I was a little surprised by the answers. What I found was that no matter the industry, the concerns revolved around one similar topic: Not having an office or around to help them stay organized while they are on the road.

Here are a few of the responses:

• “Scheduling the trip is always a pain.”
• “Keeping myself organized while I am away has always been a challenge.”
• “Expense reports – I hate submitting them.”
• “Setting appointments with clients that have to take place away from my “turf.””
• “Not being “connected” for hours at a time.”
• “Not having an office to work out of.”
• “Having to schedule meetings on the road.”
• “Attempting to work out of airports.”
• “Remembering to bring the right technology with me.

Do you have other travel hardships you would like to share or do you have a potential solution to the list above? Leave a comment, I would love to hear them!