Keeping costs down in the first year or two of operations is crucial for any new start up. Since new businesses typically have small revenue streams, they need to stay lean, especially in the first year or two of operations. This is why having a ‘virtual office’ can go a long way in keeping administration costs down. What do I mean by a virtual office? It means essentially outsourcing all functions of an office from the phone number to the civic address to where you hold your business meetings.
Lets start with your business office. In the beginning, most new startups operate their businesses from home. It saves money and there are also numerous tax advantages (e.g expensing a portion of the monthly mortgage). The problem with having a home office is that it is not very professional to meet potential clients in your living room or at your kitchen table. Furthermore, for privacy reasons, not everyone is comfortable putting their civic address on their business card. You can also imagine a client’s surprise after deciding to ‘drop by’ your office and finding themselves on a residential street filled with detached homes.
Enter companies like ExecuSpace and Global PrimeOffice Network. The creative people behind these companies created a profitable business model by renting office space and conference rooms by the hour ($20 and $25 respectively at ExecuSpace). They also ‘sell’ business addresses in prime locations that you can use instead of your civic address. At ExecuSpace for example, for $50 per month, you can put their business address (prime office space located in downtown Montreal) as your own business address. They will keep all your mail for you and you can pick it up any time between regular business hours (9am to 5pm). An add-on service would be to sign up for personalized telephone answering where a professional secretary can answer basic questions and forward calls to your business number (involves the monthly charge as well as signing up for a regular business line).
Note: An even cheaper alternative to a business address is to go to your nearest Canada Post office and sign up for a P.O. Box. For $16 a month ($47 every three months), you can have your own P.O. Box and receive all your business related mail.
Now that a professional business location is taken care of, lets look at telephone service. You can always use your house phone or cell phone to receive business calls. However, what if your child answers the phone at home? What if a personal friend calls your cellphone and the first thing they hear is is “XYZ Inc., John speaking. How may I help you?”. There are clearly some disadvantages to mixing your personal life with your professional life. Lets look at the alternative. A basic business line with a carrier like Bell or Videotron will cost you at least $70 per month (doesn’t include long distance plan). This is manageable, but what if I told you that there was a way to get your own business number and unlimited local and long distance calls anywhere in Canada and the US for about $10 per month?
Some of you may have heard of Skype In, a feature of Skype that allows users to get a local number and receive the call online on your Skype account. The problem is that in Canada, this service is not available. There is a way to get around this restriction. JetNumbers is an international company that provides local numbers to users for a low rate of $5.95 per month. It works like any normal number except that when people call the number, the call is automatically forwarded to your Skype account. As I mentioned, most owners of a new businesses usually work from home so this feature can be very convenient. If you are away from your computer, you can send JetNumber a professionally sounding personal greeting that they can add to your voicemail. If that’s not enough, all new voicemails are recorded and sent automatically to an email address of your choice in wav format. Too good to be true? Wait, there’s more…
Skype has a long distance plan where you can make unlimited calls to the Canada and & US for $2.95 a month. I’ve already used this service, and the quality is excellent. So lets do the math. When you sign up for this plan in addition to JetNumbers, you have unlimited incoming calls to your business number and unlimited outgoing calls to Canada and the US for less than $10 per month. Now that’s a deal!
Obviously, when you start generating revenues on a consistent basis, you can opt for a regular office with its own business line, etc. In the mean time, consider using some of the services above. Don’t forget that being a startup does not excuse you from having a poor professional image. For a new business with no established brand in the marketplace, this can be a crucial factor. Don’t hurt your chances of securing a new client by having a meeting at your kitchen table or having your 5 year old answer the phone call of a prospect. You can stay lean while having a professional image at the same time.
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