• Why become a multi-business owner? 
• How do you acquire or start new businesses? 
• How do you manage multiple businesses? 

Q: Should I own multiple businesses? What should I know before becoming a multi-business owner?
A: Owning multiple businesses is a great way to increase profits and minimize your risk. Before becoming a multi-business owner, you need to understand how to protect each of your businesses, how to use your new market share effectively, and how to capitalize on the network built through owning multiple businesses.

The only thing better than owning one successful business is owning multiple successful businesses. 

When you own multiple businesses, you’re giving yourself several new avenues of growth and profitability.  

More market share, multiple streams of income, and most importantly, a growing network of motivated professionals are just a few of the benefits associated with becoming a multi-business owner. 

While profit and market share are the pillars on which your business was built, the network you’ll build through the acquisition of other businesses is invaluable to your future endeavors. 

Creating a vast network of connections and customers is something that every business owner dreams of. With a large enough network, you can easily react to shifts in the market, quickly strike when opportunities present themselves, and maximize profit. 

However, creating this network will often require multiple businesses, as one business simply isn’t far-reaching enough to have the influence that a conglomeration will have. 

This begs the question: how can business owners create a parent company and acquire more businesses? 

Well, becoming a multi-business owner doesn’t happen overnight. 

In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at why you would want to become a multi-business owner, how to go about acquiring new businesses, the best way to manage multiple businesses, and some virtual solutions for the modern multi-business owner. 

So, if you’ve ever wondered about the “multi-business owner” definition, keep reading! 

• Why become a multi-business owner? 
• How do you acquire or start new businesses? 
• How do you manage multiple businesses? 
• Virtual solutions for the modern multi-business owner 

Why acquire multiple businesses? 

Before we dive into the benefits associated with acquisition, let’s take a look at a few commonly asked questions as well as the real multi-business owner meaning. 

1. How many companies can I own? 
2. How should I protect myself and my businesses?
3. What is the average multi-business owner salary? 
4. Can I be the CEO of all of my businesses? 

How many companies can I own? 

You can own as many businesses as you’d like. There’s no limit to the number of LLCs, DBAs, sole proprietorships, or corporations a person can own.  

Regardless of whether you’re starting new businesses or acquiring existing ones, you should do so one at a time. 

How should I protect myself and my businesses? 

Either through the use of a parent company, owning corporation, or individual LLCs. 

While you can hypothetically run multiple DBAs through a single LLC, this is a dangerous way to do business. If one of your businesses is sued, all of your other businesses under the LLC are at risk. 

Alternatively, if you’d like to use a parent company, you can operate numerous LLCs under one owning corporation LLC. If you don’t want to create a parent company or owning corporation, your best bet is to create an LLC for each business, protecting each business as thoroughly as possible. 

What is the average multi-business owner salary? 

This is completely up to you.  

While national averages suggest that the typical American small business owner makes approximately $50,000 annually, your salary depends entirely on your motivation and the success of each of your businesses. 

Can I be the CEO of all of my businesses? 

Yes, there is no limit to the number of businesses you can be the CEO of.  

Some companies likely have noncompete agreements or other company bylaws that could prevent you from being CEO of two businesses at once, but if you are the owner of the business, that shouldn’t be an issue. 

Keep in mind, if you’re buying businesses rather than starting your own, it’s often easier to keep your new employees in the same position they were previously in.  

Sure, you can find new employees to take on the higher-level positions — and in some cases, you’ll need to do so — but if the business is running smoothly and serving its purpose, don’t mess with success 

Read more: Your Shortcut to New Success: How to Buy a Small Business 

Becoming a multi-business owner comes with several unique benefits.  

Below, we’ve covered some of the benefits associated with being a multi-business owner. 

• More diverse offerings 
• Highly customizable marketing 
• Weathering economic downturns 

More diverse offerings 

First, owning multiple businesses simply allows for more diverse offerings. 

You don’t have to worry about how expanding into new markets and offering new products will affect your brand image.  

You can keep a designated brand completely removed from any of your business experiments without worrying about your existing customers being confused by your new direction. 

Because you can use other businesses for product rollouts and other new offerings, you have an excellent, streamlined way to test the market without risking very much. 

Highly customizable marketing 

Second, having multiple businesses allows you to tailor your marketing to capitalize on different demographics. 

If you’re operating one business, it’s not going to be easy to market to both retirees and college students, because the more you market to one of these demographics, the less you appeal to the other.  

But as a multi-business owner, you can avoid this. 

You can hone in on multiple audiences and connect with them on a high level. This is far more effective than trying to create generic marketing materials that appeal to several audiences at once. 

The best kinds of marketing create a connection between your business and the consumer.  

When you’re using multiple businesses to do this, you have the distinct opportunity to create deep connections with several niche demographics — something that would be impossible with one business. 

Weathering economic downturns 

Third, owning multiple businesses can help you weather economic downturns. 

Similar to the way smart investment portfolios spread their risk over multiple investments, owning multiple businesses makes it easier to remain profitable should any one business take a hit. 

With one business, you’re insulated by the assets and revenue that that single business has generated.  

With multiple businesses, you have more surface area. This means that you can cut costs in more areas, making decisions that bring value to your corporation or portfolio, rather than worrying specifically about the longevity of one business. 

How to acquire or start new businesses 

There are multiple approaches that you can take when you’re looking to become a multi-business owner.  

First, you need to determine whether you’d like to acquire or buy another business, or start each business in your portfolio from the ground up. 

We’ve created a list of actionable tips for both options below, keep reading for a firsthand multi-business owner account of how to get started. 

• Purchasing existing businesses 
  • Similar offerings 
  • New demographics 
  • Considerable upside 
• Starting new businesses 
  • Existing knowledge 
  • Easy to run 

Purchasing existing businesses 

Similar offerings 

One straightforward way to purchase an existing business is to find something with similar operations to your current company. 

With the synergy between the new business’s offerings and your existing operations, you can easily add them to what you’re already doing. This allows you to retain branding and capture more consumer interest through both companies. 

Because you’re familiar with your new business’s operations, you won’t be forced to spend time and money learning the ins and outs of the industry. Additionally, by purchasing a business that is in the same market as your existing one, you’re reducing competition while simultaneously gaining market share. 

As a multi-business owner with businesses offering similar products, you also have the distinct advantage of being able to collect data on two styles of marketing, benefiting from friendly competition between brands. 

New demographics 

Depending on the industry you’re entering, you can also acquire a new business that’s quite different than what you’re currently doing. 

This route can be insanely profitable, but it’s probably not a great idea to enter an industry you know nothing about. 

You don’t necessarily have to be an expert on new industries or target demographics, but you should, at the very least, know enough to hire individuals with the required knowledge. 

If you are going this route and purchasing an already running, profitable business, your best bet is to retain as much of the team as you’re comfortable with. This will allow the business to continue running as it did before. 

One benefit of buying an existing business with a new target demographic is that all of the customers that the business has already established can become crossover patrons. 

Once you’ve purchased a new business, you’ll have access to the existing customer database, which is invaluable for your future operations. Working with and creating a deeper, more fruitful customer-company relationship with these existing individuals is considerably cheaper than standard customer-acquisition costs. 

Considerable upside 

The key to finding any good business to purchase is to find a business that is fairly small, but shows a very positive trajectory. 

Regardless of the kind of company you’re purchasing, you’re buying a company with the intention to make a return on your investment. The more upside potential a business has, the more you stand to make. 

With this approach, you don’t want to purchase businesses that are too small, because unfortunately, small startups are more likely to fail. Similarly, you don’t want to purchase a business that’s doing too well, because there isn’t as much available upside. 

The idea is to find a business that’s growing quickly but still in its earlier stages. This will allow you the highest ROI on the purchase price. 

Starting new businesses 

Existing knowledge 

The best way to start a new business yourself is to leverage your existing knowledge. 

If you have a business idea that’s similar to what you’re already doing but serving a different market, you can simply replicate your existing structure with new marketing. 

If you have expertise in an entirely different area, you can leverage that and repeat the same process you’ve used to build your current business. 

With the tools at your disposal, the cost of starting new businesses is more cost-efficient than when businesses relied on traditional office space. 

With a virtual office, for example, you can register your new business with a professional and well-known address, in any state you’d like. 

With this and the other tools Alliance Virtual Offices provides, you can grow your parent company’s holdings without risking the kind of capital that traditional office rentals and basic business utilities require. 

Read more: The Best Place to Start a Business Isn’t a “Place” At All 

Keep in mind, starting a new business is going to require some time. With the countless digital tools the modern age has provided, it won’t be as expensive as it previously was, but it will still require considerable time, effort, and thought. 

Easy to run 

As a multi-business owner, you are going to be very busy. 

If you decide to start an additional business, try to pick something that won’t require sizable input on your part. For instance, jobs like property management or other service-based businesses that allow you to delegate tasks are great for this kind of new business. 

With the low costs of starting new virtual businesses, don’t be afraid of failure. All of your experiences can teach you something, and failure is simply part of the process. 

That said, failure, when you’re starting a new business and failure when you’ve purchased an existing business, are two different things.  

With new businesses, you just need to know when to cut your losses.  

When you’ve purchased an existing business, you’re risking a lot of capital and expecting a return on your investment, so when purchasing an existing business fails, it can be catastrophic for your parent company. 

Regardless of the path you choose to take to become a multi-business owner, the key to starting or acquiring these businesses is balancing your management. 

How to manage multiple businesses 

Managing a single business is a lot of work. Unsurprisingly, managing multiple businesses is more work than that. 

We’ve put together three separate aspects of managing multiple businesses that will help you on your journey to becoming a multi-business owner. 

These three aspects — your team, your management, and your business’s liability — need to be functioning congruently in order to get the best return on your initial investments. 

Team 

The best way to manage multiple businesses is to build a competent team. 

In most cases, you simply will not be able to handle everything yourself. You need to focus on the big-picture items and delegate the specifics. 

This is why if you purchase an existing business with a competent team, you should leave it alone. Building a team that functions and collaborates at a high level isn’t easy, and if you’ve purchased teams of employees that are already doing this, consider yourself lucky. 

Management 

If you’re trying to manage several businesses without the help of other high-level employees to lighten the load, you’re going to have an incredibly confusing and frustrating time with your business’s operations. 

So, how can you simplify management, bring your teams together, and delegate tasks effectively? 

The answer, and key to managing multiple teams across multiple businesses, is decentralization. With remote operations, you can connect the numerous moving parts of each business while remaining flexible and agile. 

This allows you to make the most of your businesses and get more done. 

Liability 

From a registration standpoint, you’ll likely want to incorporate each of your businesses under your existing LLC. 

You can do this by creating a holding LLC or DBAs, but a holding LLC is better suited to larger numbers of businesses. 

As mentioned, registering multiple DBAs under one LLC is generally an unwise business decision to make.  

If you don’t feel like you need to create a holding company, your best bet is to simply register each business to its own separate LLC. 

However, by taking this route, you will have to spend a bit more money than if you were to use DBAs. Still, this move becomes more cost-efficient than renting a traditional office building. 

With an LLC for each business, you’ll be responsible for filing taxes separately for each business, filing separate Articles of Organization, finding a registered agent for each LLC, and taking care of any other state-specific requirements for each LLC you register. 

This might sound like a lot of work, but it’s worth it for the liability protection that individual LLCs provide. 

Read More: Get a Virtual Address For LLC Registration 

Virtual solutions for the modern multi-business owner 

Running multiple businesses can be a great way to boost your profits and spread your risk. 

The key to successfully owning multiple businesses is proper management.  

Thankfully, with the countless virtual solutions you have at your disposal, managing multiple businesses has never been easier. 

These modern virtual solutions take many shapes, and their cost-efficient nature is enough to make even the stingiest multi-business owner bank account happy. 

With our Virtual Offices, Live Receptionists, Virtual Phones, and Meeting Rooms, you’ve got a streamlined way to manage multiple businesses from the comfort of wherever you’d like to work. 

Further Reading 

• How to Buy a Small Business – Your Shortcut to Success 
• Switching to Remote Work? Don’t Settle with Your Remote Workspace 
• How to Set Up Payroll for Small Business, and the Best Time-Saving Tools 
• The Best Place to Start a Business Isn’t a “Place” At All 

At Alliance Virtual Offices, we pride ourselves in providing several virtual solutions for motivated entrepreneurs looking to scale their operations or procure new businesses. 

Our virtual offices are available in countless locations, and every office comes equipped with a professional and well-known address, increasing your business’s reputation, legitimacy and affording you unfathomable flexibility. 

The business addresses our virtual offices provide also allows you to keep your home address completely private. 

Registering a business requires a business address, but using your home puts you at risk of receiving countless spam messages,  and gives disgruntled customers or frustrated ex-employees an easy way to get your information. 

With our Live Receptionists, you can focus on the nitty-gritty aspects of being a multi-business owner.  

Don’t waste your time answering phone call after phone call. Instead, use one of our friendly and professional receptionists to screen each of your calls and provide a friendly point of contact for first-time callers. 

Virtual Phones allow your entire team to stay connected without relinquishing personal phone numbers. With unlimited extensions, you can easily onboard new team members and keep multiple businesses connected and communicating. 

Giving an investor presentation in a crowded coffee shop isn’t a good look. Giving an investor presentation at your house might be an even worse one. 

Alliance Virtual Offices’ meeting rooms are a welcome alternative. Instead of trying to host important events from public spaces, your home, or expensive hotel conference rooms, you can easily reserve a meeting room that is specifically tailored to your needs. 

With our friendly and professional staff available, any technical difficulties you run across during your presentation can easily be rectified! 

As you can see, there are several different tools for multi-business owners looking to effectively manage their businesses. 

Regardless of the tools you decide to use, becoming a multi-business owner is an excellent way to introduce new streams of revenue, secure more market share, and grow your professional network. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to business ownership and hoping to find an effective way to become a multi-business owner, or a business owner who’s been in the industry for decades – Alliance Virtual Offices is ready to help. 

Contact us today to see how Alliance Virtual Offices can help your parent company or owning corporation! 

Sign up for our newsletter for more helpful business insights! 

The post Growing Up and Out: How to Become a Multi-Business Owner first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• The purpose of LLCs
• When should you consider having more than one LLC?
• How having multiple LLCs could benefit you

Q: Can you have multiple LLCs under one business?

A: Yes. It is completely reasonable to have one LLC for your primary LLC, but there can be surprising tax and other benefits to having multiple LLCs for your business verticals.

The limited liability company (LLC) business structure is one of the most popular ways of structuring companies ever. Rules vary at the state level, and many smaller businesses are content with one LLC. Established businesses, however, that have a diverse set of products/solutions to offer often find themselves asking, How Many LLCs can I have?

What is an LLC?

An LLC is a business license that is issued by the state you primarily reside in. LLC stands for limited liability company. 

LLCs can be found at the intersection between a partnership and a corporation. LLCs are more flexible and require less paperwork than corporations yet follow the taxation rules of a partnership. LLCs do not pay taxes directly since the members of the LLCs report the taxes on their tax returns.

The owners of an LLC are called “members”. Generally, members of an LLC first choose a name and then construct articles of organization that will outline how the LLC will be run.  

These LLC operating agreements determine the rights, liabilities, duties, and other responsibilities of each member of the LLC. There is also standard information included in LLC formation paperwork such as names and addresses. Submitting paperwork for an LLC requires a small fee that varies by state.

Let’s further explore the purpose of LLCs and why you might want to create one or more for your business. 

The purpose of LLCs

The primary purpose of registering your business as an LLC is to protect yourself from the liabilities of your business. 

Having an LLC will protect all the owners of the LLC from getting personally sued for something concerning the company. Sole proprietorships and partnerships cannot offer this kind of personal liability protection. 

The first step is taking a moment to consider when you need an LLC. 

Another purpose of LLCs is to create something called a charging order. 

If one member of the LLC has problems that could affect the rest of the LLC, the charging order will ensure that the business is protected as well as the other member’s roles within the LLC. 

LLCs allow for certain tax advantages. As opposed to corporations that are taxed twice, owners of an LLC can only be taxed once.

LLCs go through a taxation process called pass-through taxation. Pass-through taxation means that the taxes of the LCCs are passed through the business to be reported on the owners’ tax returns at the owners’ tax rate. This means that the business does not have to pay any federal income tax.

Another purpose of having an LLC is that they are generally inexpensive to create.

Some entrepreneurs/ Solopreneurs/ LLC partnerships with more than 1 to 2 members find it makes sense to break a company into more than one LLC.  Let’s find out other reasons you might want to consider having multiple LLCs.

Read More: Sister Company: Making the Most of your LLC

When should you consider having more than one LLC?

You are probably wondering just how many LLCs you can have and when creating multiple LLCs makes sense.

You can create a new LLC for any business you want to create.

There is no limit to the actual number of LLCs that a person can create. It is perfectly legal to have more than one LLC.

There are a few reasons that having multiple LLCs make sense.

One of your businesses is at risk

First, you notice that one of your businesses is at risk of failing. 

When you have more than one business, it is time to consider putting them into individual LLCs so that one business’s assets are not linked to the other should one unfortunately fail. 

You have a new product launching

Another time you might want to consider dividing your business up into multiple LLCs is when you have a new product launching. 

If you are unsure whether or not your new product will do well, it is best to divide your ventures into individual LLCs so that the well-being of your business is not liable for the possible failure of your product. 

This may seem like thinking negatively, but it is a security blanket for you and your small business. 

You may also want to consider registering for multiple LLCs when you own part of one LLC and decide to invest in another. This will keep your individual business endeavors untangled from one another. 

When might you not want to consider having multiple LLCs?

Although there are many surprising benefits to having multiple LLCs for your businesses and clear signs of when you will want to create them. 

You might wonder when you would want to avoid having multiple LLCs for your business. 

Some states have laws that protect businesses from conflict of interest. If you find that by creating two LLCs, you will have a conflict of interest, it is best to avoid the process. 

This complicates things because if you have a responsibility to one LLC and cannot fulfill it due to your responsibility to another LLC, it becomes a problem. In other words, you have to avoid violating your contract with one LLC while fulfilling the duties of another. 

For example, if you own a restaurant and a food supply company, you may want to help the food supply company by giving it a contract to supply food to the restaurant. Because you would profit from the deal, you might be violating your responsibility with the hotel if there was a better deal available.

Deals such as this are permitted in some states when the agreement has been previously discussed and agreed upon with the other members of the LLC. 

What are the duties of a member of an LLC?

Well, it varies from state to state but usually, it entails loyalty to the LLC.

There is also a specification between members of an LLC and managers of an LLC. The specific laws of what the duties are from member to manager vary from state to state.

To avoid unnecessary conflicts, it is advised to understand your state’s laws and requirements of LLC operating agreements. 

However, when making a new LLC, there are other factors to consider.

You might want to be prepared for more paperwork since they are each taxed individually and not as one larger whole, even though it is one person that filed them. It is important to check with your local state laws to determine what is appropriate for your business. 

You will need to open separate bank accounts for each LLC. 

As you scale up your business by registering more LLCs, you will also need to consider that your office space also needs to be scaled up. 

Thankfully, Alliance Virtual Offices is here to help. 

Alliance Virtual Offices is a virtual office space that can grow with you no matter how many LLCs you may end up wanting to create in the future. Unlike a physical office space that you would need to expand with your growing needs, Alliance Virtual Offices is already ready for your growth. 

Instantly boost your professional image with a virtual office space. Get a virtual business address for your growing business & have access to a live receptionist.

Read More: Opening a Bank Account for an LLC? Here’s What You’ll Need

Surprising benefits of having multiple LLCs for your business

When deciding the best way to legally structure your multiple businesses, you have options. 

In today’s economic environment, it is important to understand how to protect your business. 

You could create one LLC and multiple “doing business as”, or DBAs, for each of your other ventures. 

You can even create individual LLCs but still have them under another LLC. 

The most popular option, however, is creating multiple individual LLCs. 

While having just one LLC is perfectly fine for your business, there are considerable benefits to having more. It is quite common for people to create more than one LLC. 

Let’s consider the benefits of having multiple LLCs for your business. 

Liability Protection 

The first benefit of having multiple LLCs for your business is that since having an LLC already protects you from your business’s liability, registering for multiple LLCs will protect your individual businesses from each other. 

For example, if you have 4 separate LLCs and one of them gets sued, the other three will not be affected. If all of these businesses were under the umbrella of only one LCC, they would all be liable. This is why it matters to have more than one LLC since it will protect you and your businesses if one of them incurs hardship. 

In this way, it creates financial independence for you and your businesses. By dividing up your business into individual LLCs, each one of your LLCs enjoys this financial independence that could save your reputation as an entrepreneur if one of your LLCs needs to file for bankruptcy or goes out of business. 

One of the most common examples of people creating more than one LLC is in the real estate investment market. 

Property owners will create a new LLC for each property that they own. If any of the other properties have legal or financial trouble, the other properties will not come under fire as well. 

For example, if one of your properties incurs a lawsuit, the rest of your properties will not be connected to the lawsuit thus protecting them from being collateral. 

Imagine that one of your tenants in one of your many properties sues you for a fire started in the dryer with a type of dryer that was supposed to be recalled months ago. If the tenant were to sue you and your properties were not separated into multiple LLCs, when the tenant wins, the courts could take all of your properties. 

If they are divided up into multiple LLCs, the court can only touch the property in question and your other properties are safe. This is why it is very common for real estate property investors to have many LLCs for their various properties. 

Easier to split businesses apart and attract investors 

The second reason there is a benefit to having multiple LLCs is that your businesses become easier to split apart. 

When your businesses are all tangled together under one LLC, they become difficult to separate if you want to sell one of your businesses without selling all of the others with it.

This will also attract more investors to your business. When your established business is scaled into separate and distinct LLCs, investors will be more drawn into putting money into your business.

If your business is confusing and tangled between various business endeavors, investors will be less likely to be attracted to them because they cannot tell one from the other.

Since they are aware of the benefits, you should be too so that your business becomes easier to sell and you become more likely to turn a profit. 

There have been cases of people that want to sell a part of their business but actually cannot because it is so tangled up with their other businesses under the umbrella of one LLC title.

If you divide up your businesses by having multiple LLCs, it will be much easier to sell them off individually and make a profit off of them.

Tax Benefits

A third benefit of having multiple LLCs is because of taxes.

Since each LLC is taxed individually, you could be taxed in a much lower tax bracket by having your businesses separated under multiple LLCs while their combined income of having them under one LLC might put you in a higher tax bracket. 

Therefore, having more than one LLC for your small business might be the most economical option. 

Privacy Protection

Another surprising benefit of registering your businesses into multiple LLCs is that it can provide privacy protection for owners or investors

The LLCs can be filed under names that are not the personal names of the owners. It is harder to connect the dots when your businesses are filed until multiple LLCs as opposed to being held under one umbrella that lists all of your ventures at once. Filing for multiple LLCs may be of interest to anyone interested in protecting their privacy or the privacy of their investors. 

While the paperwork may be too much of a hassle for some, for others having multiple LLCs adds unexpected benefits such as saving money on taxes, protecting yourself and your other businesses, and being able to easily sell one of your businesses.

As with any situation, you need to make the choice that is best for your unique business.

A real estate company that wants to file each property as an individual LLC may make a very different choice than a painting company that paints commercial and residential houses that wants to keep their business together under one LLC. 

You might want to consult with accountants or a business attorney to make the best decision for your specific situation. 

Cons of having multiple LLCs

One of the main cons of having multiple LLCs for your businesses is that it requires additional paperwork. 

Creating multiple LLCs for your business could also be costly.

It would be better to consider scaling your multiple businesses through LLCs if your business is already well established so that you can occur these fees without hassle. 

You will need to pay the LLC fee to the government for each as well as annual fees to the state. 

In addition, you will need individual business licenses for each LLC which you will have to file separately. 

You will also need to file individual tax forms for each, which could end up being an added benefit depending on your situation.

Each state has very specific laws as to what the rules are for LLCs in their area so it is important to check with your local laws. It may be beneficial to choose the best state for LLC formation that would best benefit your business. 

Although there is more paperwork involved with registering more and more LLCs, there is much less paperwork in the end if you decide to sell off one of them.

Conclusion 

There is absolutely no limit to just how many LLCs you can create. 

Although it can involve more paperwork, creating more than one LLC for your business can have surprising benefits. 

Creating multiple LLCs can allow you to protect yourself and your businesses, easily sell your businesses, attract more investors to your business, protect your privacy, and save you money on taxes. 

Although it can be majorly beneficial to have multiple LLCs for your business, it can be challenging to manage all of them on your own. 

Your office space will need to expand as your businesses expand. 

This can be especially challenging if work remote or often travel for work. 

Don’t settle for address-only mail plans. Work flexibly in a professional space from Alliance Virtual Offices.

Further Reading 

• Here Are the Benefits of Multiple LLCs or Corporations for Your Businesses
• What’s the Best Way to Legally Structure Multiple Businesses?
• Can I have more than one LLC?
• Small Business LLC or DBA? The Pros and Cons

Alliance Virtual Offices has been in this area since 1992 and can set you up with flexible, on-demand workspaces for all of your LLCs, allowing you to work from wherever they want but also have established business addresses. 

It can be confusing having multiple LLCs and trying to manage reception for all of them in one office.

Alliance Virtual offers live receptionist plans that can keep track of your LLCs office needs. 

Get set up quickly and easily with the help of our 5-star staff. Our team is here to help you every step of the way.

Trusted by over 15,000 businesses worldwide.

Alliance is your Virtual Office partner. We’re here to help you achieve long-term, sustainable growth for your business and multiple LLCs. 

After learning that you can divide your business into as many LLCs as you want, you may be beginning to consider purchasing an address for one of your new LLCs or wonder about how to purchase a virtual business address.

Divide up your LLCs without the hassle of having to purchase multiple offices. Don’t spend needless money on having multiple office spaces for your multiple LLCs and staff for your businesses when you can do it all virtually through Alliance Virtual Offices. 

Make each dollar count with flexible office space on an as-needed basis.

The post How Many LLCs Can You Have? Surprising Benefits of Scaling Established Businesses With More LLCs first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

But there are times when even a smartphone isn’t quite smart enough. It might be the engine room of your business, but do you really want to publish your cell phone number on the Internet and social media? That makes it far too easy for spammers to find your number. Once that happens, the robocalls start coming thick and fast.

The best way around it is an automated attendant feature. Cell phones don’t offer this feature, so that’s where a VoIP phone system comes in handy.

A VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone is hosted online, which gives you the flexibility to take calls from multiple devices, wherever you are. You can take calls from your smartphone, your home phone, or even a computer, and stay productive while you’re on-the-go.

Alliance offers a low-cost, cloud-based VoIP phone system for just $30 per month, which comes with 50+ features to streamline your communications. To help you understand the system and how it helps your business, here’s a rundown of the top 20 VoIP features from Alliance.

Related: Answering Services for Small Businesses

1. Call Screening

What is it? An audio announcement for an incoming call that provides specific caller information.

Why is it useful? Find out who’s calling just by looking at your screen. If you have multiple phone numbers, you’ll know exactly which number your caller is trying to reach. That means you can greet your caller in a specific way, or transfer the call to the relevant person.

2. Call Forwarding

What is it? Forward calls made to your extension to any other number.

Why is it useful? This function helps you cut down on missed calls. It allows you to direct calls to other phones or numbers – such as your home, office, or cell phone, which means you’re no longer tied to a specific location.

3. Menus (IVR)

What is it? Create a custom message for your callers. For example: “Press 1 to reach Sales. Press 2 for Customer Service…”

Why is it useful? Guide callers to the appropriate extension quickly and easily, without spending time manually transferring calls to the right place. A great menu helps your company appear more professional, and you can also use it to educate callers. For instance, set up your menu with a customized recording giving important information such as business hours, company directory and any other useful details.

4. Custom Greetings

What is it? Create personal audio messages for your callers.

Why is it useful? Personalize the caller experience and educate them about opening times, department contact details and so on. Record an audio greeting with menus directly from your phone, or by uploading your own audio files. You can add your own choice of music, too.

5. Schedules

What is it? Schedules allow you to route calls based on the day and time the call is received.

Why is it useful? Set a schedule according to your own working hours. Route incoming calls to different numbers, extensions, greetings, or menus, based on the day and time the call is received. For example, a call received during business hours can receive your normal greeting while a call received after business hours can have a different greeting, which educates callers on your opening times and alternate contact details (email address, website URL, and so on). You can also set your schedule to incorporate vacations and seasonal events.

6. Address Book

What is it? Import, manage, sync and route your business contacts with your virtual phone.

Why is it useful? This feature lets you keep all your business contacts in one place. Import existing contacts from your email account, enabling you to call or send SMS messages directly from within your virtual phone account. You can also assign custom call handling rules for your contacts and create personalized messages, numbers, voicemail and more.

7. Communicator

What is it? This useful app lets you turn any computer into a phone.

Why is it useful? Place and take calls from your computer without the need to pick up a handset or cell phone. You can access your address book and phone settings, just like any normal phone, except you can now talk and work, hands-free. It’s great for those times when you need to take notes or multi-task.

8. Call Blocking

What is it? Screen and block incoming calls from telemarketers, unknown numbers or specific area codes.

Why is it useful? Prevent distractions by stopping unwanted callers from reaching you. You can block a caller during a call, or easily add them to a blocked call list.

7. Follow Me

What is it? Follow Me lets you direct calls to single or multiple numbers and have them ring all at once, or one after the other.

Why is it useful? Decide who can ‘find you’ and at what time of the day. Their calls will find you at any location, which means you’ll never miss an important call from your VIPs.

10. User Extensions

What is it? Create an unlimited number of extensions for your team.

Why is it useful? Give every employee their own dedicated extension number, which allows you to route calls to multiple destinations including cell phones and home phones or other features such as caller menus or queues. Each extension has an address book, voicemail, greetings and more.

11. HD Audio Conferencing

What is it? Conference calling software for up to 300 people.

Why is it useful? Every employee has their own conference bridge with this intuitive software, which is compatible with any phone system and provides HD (High Definition) voice quality. Ideal for remote teams or for staying in touch with home-based workers, freelancers, and travelling sales employees.

12. Call Handling Rules

What is it? Customize incoming calls by setting rules, which automatically sends callers to the right extension or voicemail.

Why is it useful? Provide a more efficient experience by using Call Handling Rules to route incoming calls to a specific destination. Or, send calls to different destinations based on the day and time, or the caller’s ID.

13. In-Call Features Including Call Holding and Transferring

What is it? Numerous features to help you deal with calls more efficiently, including placing callers on hold, recording calls, and transferring calls to another number.

Why is it useful? Save time by making quick actions during a call, such as forwarding to voicemail or blocking a number. In-call features include: attended transfer; grab back transferred call; transfer to voicemail; place call on hold; record a call; and call blocking or unblocking.

14. Voicemail Transcription

What is it? Voicemail Transcription gives you the ability to read your voicemail messages rather than listen to them.

Why is it useful? Perfect for anyone who doesn’t like listening to voicemail. Choose from an automated transcription, or upgrade to a premium human-assisted transcription. Either way, you have the ability to read your voicemail rather than listening to the actual message, enabling you to read your voicemail messages while on the phone or carrying out other tasks.

15. CRM Integration 

What is it? Integrate with popular CRM software for easy click-to-dial, screen pops, and more.

Why is it useful? Enhance business performance by utilizing call data, screen pops, click-to-dial and tracking – all from within your browser. Get better analytics and improve your lead capture with the system’s smart note box, which uses natural language processing to improve follow-ups and collaboration.

16. Video Conferencing Service

What is it? Hold face-to-face video meetings with up to 25 people.​

Why is it useful? Video conferencing is ideal when you work with remote teams or clients. The system enables you to screen-share and present information in real time to remote workers via a web application, which means no downloads are required. The program does not replace your audio conferencing channel; it simply adds a video component to it.

17. Call Recording

What is it? Record calls and listen to them at a later date.

Why is it useful? Ideal for interviews, complex calls, or training. Choose which calls you wish to record – such as incoming calls, outbound, all calls, or custom requirements – and download the audio file from your phone system, ready to play it back anytime you need it.

18. Dial-by-Name Directory

What is it? Callers can search for a person’s extension by using the automated dial-by-name directory.

Why is it useful? Help callers find the right extension with the help of a computer generated auto-attendant. Callers are asked to enter the first or last name of the person they’re trying to reach, using their dialpad, and the system will read out the person’s name and extension to the caller.

19. Hold Music

What is it? Choose the music your callers listen to while they’re on-hold or in a queue.

Why is it useful? Improve the caller’s experience by selecting from a variety of quality music tracks that play while they are on hold or waiting in a queue. Standard options include film soundtracks and classical music, while premium subscription options include popular artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, and The Beatles. You can also upload your own hold music recording to your account as a greeting (note, you must have the copyright to broadcast music on your phone system).

20. Queues

What is it? Run your own mini call center and put callers ‘on hold’ until they can connect to the next available representative.

Why is it useful? Call Queues allow you to route incoming calls to a specific group of phone numbers. While callers are waiting to be connected, the system will greet them with your custom message and play your selected hold music. Queues are ideal for customer support, sales departments, help desks, and for making reservations and appointments.

There’s more where that came from! Take a closer look at all the features included with an Alliance Virtual Phone plan here.

The post Top 20 VoIP Features of a Virtual Phone Plan first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

Phone.com has long been a leader in cloud communications that aim at meeting the unique need of small business and entrepreneurs. The virtual office phone company has won award after award over the years and was recently named a finalist in the eighth annual Stevie Awards for Customer Service Department of the Year in the telecommunications category.

“Our awesome customer service team came away with the bronze Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year for a telecommunications company and we could not be prouder. In a recent post on Communicate Better Blog I shared what I would have said had I been given the opportunity to speak,” says Phone.com’s Jeremy Watkin.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition, an increase of 36 percent over 2013. The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards and the new Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.

“I was so honored to accept the award on behalf of Phone.com. While our customer service team is awesome, an award of this nature is not earned solely by the customer service staff. It is in fact a collaborative effort of everyone within the organization from our executives, to our engineers, to our customer service representatives and of course a fantastic group of customers. It takes an entire company that listens to and cares for its customers and that is precisely what we strive to do better each day at Phone.com. Together we won this award!”

Alliance Virtual Offices congratulates Phone.com for winning yet another award. Phone.com is Alliance Virtual Offices’ virtual office phone partner.

The post Too Many Virtual Office Phone Providers? Try This One Out For Size first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.