• Why the cheapest Virtual Office seems appealing 
• Is the cheapest Virtual Office the best deal? 
• Which Virtual Office provides the best value? 
• Alternatives to the cheapest Virtual Office 

Q: What should I be looking for in a virtual office? Is the cheapest virtual office the best choice? 
A: When searching for a virtual office, you should find a provider that can cater to your business’s specific needs, that allows you to customize your office, and that is legitimate and well-respected. Using the cheapest virtual office available is seldom the right decision. 

Since the pandemic, the job market has made the switch from in-person, authoritarian styles of work to remote or hybrid, collaborative work styles. 

This change has brought a slew of technological advancements to the forefront of public thought and shown entrepreneurs everywhere that starting a business isn’t anywhere near as difficult as it used to be. 

A few decades ago, starting a business had an almost insurmountable barrier to entry. You had to secure office space, find several solid staff members, and have enough capital to keep up with these recurring costs before getting your business off the ground. 

Now, as countless Americans continue to work from home, hopeful entrepreneurs and established business owners are in a position to create robust digital-first operations without having to risk excessive capital. 

This is largely due to the Virtual Office, which gives would-be business owners a cost-efficient chance to secure a professional business address, register for an LLC with that address, and start operating their company from anywhere in the world. 

Naturally, as this service grows in popularity, several entrepreneurs are curious about the cheapest virtual office and how effective that office would be. 

In this article, we’ll cover why the cheapest virtual office might seem appealing, whether or not the cheapest virtual office is the best deal, and more importantly, which Virtual Office provides the best value. Finally, we’ll close with some key ways to scale the Virtual Office with the highest value. 

Don’t waste time searching for “cheapest virtual office in New York” or “cheapest virtual office in Dallas” – find out which Virtual Office gives you the best value for your hard-earned money. 

• Why the cheapest Virtual Office seems appealing 
• Is the cheapest Virtual Office the best deal? 
• Which Virtual Office provides the best value? 
• Scaling your Virtual Office 

Why the cheapest Virtual Office is appealing 

Before we dive into the appeal of a cheap virtual office, let’s take a moment to explain what a virtual office is. 

A virtual office is a service that provides businesses with a professional mailing address and access to amenities like conference rooms, receptionists, and coworking spaces, without the need for a physical office space. 

Read more: What is a Virtual Office and How Does it Work? 

While many new entrepreneurs that don’t need a full-time physical office use virtual offices to do their work remotely, established business owners can use virtual offices to recalibrate their online operations, enter new markets, and effectively scale their companies. 

Think of your Virtual Office as a suite of tools rather than an office that exists virtually. With the right Virtual Office, you can do business anywhere in the world, register your business anywhere you want, and customize your plan to cater to your business’s specific needs. 

Now that you know what a virtual office is, let’s explore some virtual office costs and determine why a cheap virtual office might look attractive from the outside. 

Many business owners think in absolute terms. 

They want to make the most of their money and think the best way to do that is simply to spend less. 

While the idea isn’t inherently incorrect, that is unfortunately not how business ownership works. The phrase “you have to spend money to make money” isn’t an age-old aphorism for nothing. 

Nevertheless, these business owners apply this logic to their virtual office costs. They shoot for the cheapest option because they imagine that the less they spend, the more money they’ll have in the long run. 

Again, this idea isn’t inherently incorrect, just misguided and lacking nuance. 

Think about it this way: not just in America, but all over the world, 62% of employees between the ages of 22-65 are currently working remotely occasionally, which is a hybrid work style.  

Simply put, remote work isn’t going anywhere. If the entire world was transitioning to physical office space – you wouldn’t just find the cheapest lease possible and call it quits, would you? 

No, you’d do research, compare amenities, and find the best value possible so that your employees have everything they need, your business can operate smoothly, and you’re positioned for long-term success. 

Unfortunately, many business owners don’t think this way. They’re under the impression that all virtual offices are the same. 

This isn’t the case. Many virtual offices are little more than glorified PO boxes. 

This is why searching for things like “cheapest virtual office in USA” isn’t going to get you very far. After all, if you can’t register your business with your virtual office, was it even worth it? 

Is the cheapest Virtual Office the best deal? 

Cheap virtual offices might seem like a better deal, but they simply aren’t. 

Below, we’ve put together a small list of the issues associated with searching for the cheapest virtual office. 

1. Poor locations, illegitimate addresses 
2. Limited services 
3. Unprofessional 

Poor locations, illegitimate addresses 

First of all, the cheapest virtual office isn’t going to provide your business with a prestigious address. 

With the influx of scammers and spam businesses, you can’t afford poor optics. 

Anyone who searches for your business address will instantly see it’s located in a retail store or post office.

Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t inspire confidence and may make some consumers hesitant to purchase from your company, ultimately skewing your net profits and overall profitability. 

Not to mention, using the cheapest virtual office address might put you in a situation where you’re unable to register your business because the address doesn’t even exist. 

Some states might allow you to register a business with a PO box, but some will not. Vying for the cheapest virtual office could very easily leave you in a position where you’ve spent money for an office but are unable to register your business. 

If this is the case, the cheapest virtual office has only wound up costing you more money than if you’d simply found a high-quality provider in the first place. 

Read more: Get a Virtual Address for LLC Registration 

Limited services 

Outside of the poor optics associated with a cheap virtual office and the issues of LLC registration, many of these cheaper options don’t provide any space to work and meet. 

Without amenities like these, your virtual office is only serving to make your life more difficult in the long run. 

First, you will end up having to pay high prices for rentals down the road. Finding a professional, quiet, and cost-efficient meeting room is typically a fool’s errand, so securing easily reservable space should be high on your list of priorities. 

Second, if you’ve ever worked remotely for any extended period, you understand the pitfalls and chances of burnout from working from the same place you eat, sleep, and relax. Sure, if you have a designated home office you can negate some of these feelings, but even that will get a bit monotonous after a long enough period. 

When you can access a coworking space that’s professional, quiet, and filled with like-minded entrepreneurs, you can break the routine you’ve been enduring and give yourself a fresh approach to your work and your personal life. 

At the end of the day, the cheapest virtual office isn’t going to be the best deal because you get what you pay for. 

Read more: What Are Digital Products? Your Guide to Creating and Selling 

Unprofessional 

A cheap virtual office provider may not give your business the same professionalism and customer service as a slightly more expensive provider. 

Remember, your Virtual Office should act as the centralized hub for your business. Do you want to risk leaving your business’s fate in the hands of an unprofessional provider? 

Think about it this way; your business mail will include sensitive documents, time-sensitive documents, government correspondence, and several other kinds of private mail. If you’re using an unprofessional provider, who will guarantee your mail’s safe and responsible handling? 

In addition, the cheapest virtual office providers aren’t going to have helpful and friendly onsite staff to assist you with any of your business’s needs. 

If your cheap virtual office doesn’t come with onsite staff, access to meeting rooms or coworking spaces, provides poor customer service, and might not allow you to register your LLC, what is the point of paying for that service? 

The differences between a high-quality Virtual Office and the cheapest virtual office are extensive.  

While a noble idea, focusing on saving money upfront isn’t the correct way to set yourself up for long-term success. Rather than trying to save as much money as possible upfront, you should be building out a robust business infrastructure that allows you to save money that compounds the longer your business exists. 

Instead of searching for the cheapest virtual office, you should look for the one that provides the most value. 

It’s better to make a slightly larger initial investment if that initial investment gives you a better-quality Virtual Office that helps your business grow. 

How Alliance Virtual Offices offers the best value 

Alliance Virtual Offices provides the best value for a Virtual Office, and with the economy on shakey ground, you need to search for the highest value investments possible. 

Read more: Inflation vs Recession: What’s the Difference?

We may not be the cheapest, but with every single dollar you spend, you get more than you would with our competitors. 

Just take a look at our TrustPilot profile– over 90% positive reviews and counting. For good reason, our clients have come to expect a certain high quality from our services, and we continue to deliver. 

Alliance Virtual Offices provides nothing but the best, most prestigious business addresses, helping you establish your business as reputable and trustworthy. 

Before we move on, let’s take a quick look at how Alliance Virtual Offices provides exponentially greater value than any of the cheapest virtual office options. 

• Prestigious addresses with locations in every state 
• Endless customization 
• Integrates with other digital tools 
• Access to meeting rooms and workspaces 
• Friendly onsite staff 

Prestigious addresses 

Alliance Virtual Offices has offices in every state and just about every central business district. This means that entrepreneurs can go through Alliance to register their LLCs anywhere they want. 

In addition to having offices everywhere, Alliance makes a point to use prestigious business addresses that are professional, well-known, and, when seen by consumers, clients, or potential investors, inspire nothing but confidence. 

Rent in the larger cities doesn’t seem to be declining anytime soon. Naturally, securing a Virtual Office now is an excellent way to take advantage of this continued influx of individuals. 

You don’t need to hunt for things like the “cheapest virtual office in New York” because, through Alliance, you can start a financial services business in the heart of upper Manhattan for a fraction of the cost of a physical building. 

Similarly, you can start a technology business in Silicon Valley with ease. You could even start a private LLC in Delaware through Alliance – the possibilities are endless! 

Endless customization 

Commercial leases were prohibitively expensive in the past, requiring the first and last month’s rent, a security deposit, monthly upkeep, utilities, and rent itself. Typically, these leases would last between three and five years. 

This barrier to entry prevented countless entrepreneurs from following their dreams and starting a business. But with the introduction of the Virtual Office, entrepreneurs can pay for what they want, when they want it. 

In a traditional office space, you pay monthly rent, regardless of how much time you’ve spent in the office. 

With your Virtual Office, you have access to meeting rooms, coworking spaces, mail forwarding, and other Alliance services that you can pay for and use only as needed. 

If you don’t need to spend any time in a physical workspace, you don’t have to pay extra money for the right to use that space. Alternatively, if you do need to spend time in a physical workspace, Alliance allows you to pay for the space as you need it. 

Customization is everything. 

At Alliance Virtual Offices, we understand that no two businesses are alike and that flexibility is the most important aspect of any successful business. We’re flexible by helping you build a Virtual Office that caters specifically to your business’s needs, wants, and goals.

When you’re searching for the cheapest virtual office, customization isn’t even an option. Several cheaper providers offer one service, one fee, and virtually no amenities. 

Integrates with other tools 

Customization without integration is meaningless. When using the cheapest virtual office, you have no guarantees that your office will integrate with the other tools you’re using to help your business grow. 

At Alliance, this isn’t the case. 

Alliance’s Virtual Offices are built to integrate with any digital tools your business can imagine. Alliance itself provides several tools that you can easily set up to function through your Virtual Office. 

Remember, when you search for the cheapest virtual office, you aren’t just affecting your business’s performance in the short term, you’re creating barriers that you’ll have to hurdle as your business continues to grow. 

Access to meeting rooms and coworking spaces 

Alliance’s Virtual Offices all come with access to easily reservable meeting rooms and coworking spaces. 

Most cheap virtual offices won’t offer any kind of physical space, so this is a huge benefit. 

Having this access allows you to break the monotony of working from home, gives you a place to host client or investor meetings, and even allows you to provide the same amenities for your employees. 

Outside of the meeting rooms and coworking spaces, Alliance’s Virtual Offices also come with mail forwarding add-ons that you can use to help organize your business mail. 

Depending on the volume of mail you’re receiving, you can pick between once-monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, and daily mail forwarding options. 

Each of these options ensures that your mail is being handled safely and securely, so there’s no need to worry about prying eyes or bad actors getting their hands on your confidential documents. 

Friendly onsite staff 

Another benefit that cannot be overstated is the friendly and professional onsite staff that Alliance Virtual Offices employs. 

There’s nothing worse than trying to host a meeting but being stopped in your tracks by a technological issue. Similarly, there’s nothing more frustrating than reaching out to your Virtual Office support staff and waiting days before getting a response. 

With Alliance, neither of these are issues you’ll have to experience again. 

The onsite staff is ready and available to help you troubleshoot technological issues while staying available and ensuring you’re never without support for your Virtual Office. 

As you can see, Alliance Virtual Offices provides the best value for entrepreneurs and business owners everywhere. 

Don’t risk your business by using the cheapest virtual office or other low-quality digital tools. Instead, use Alliance Virtual Offices to ensure your company is positioned for continued, long-term success. 

Alternatives to the cheapest Virtual Office 

While it may be tempting to go with the cheapest virtual office, doing so gets you considerably less per-dollar. 

Alliance Virtual Offices might be slightly more expensive, but we provide the best value for your money. 

Think about it this way: in the past, a traditional office was prohibitively expensive and required an inordinate amount of upkeep. 

Now, regardless of the virtual office you choose, you can save an absurd percentage of that capital and use it to reinvest in your business. 

Searching for the cheapest virtual office after saving so much money on the switch to digital-first operations is nothing more than being greedy. 

Instead of trying to save money with a cheap virtual office, use a high-quality Virtual Office to cut operational costs while strengthening your business infrastructure. 

You can use a Live Receptionist that integrates perfectly with your Virtual Office to reduce the positions you need to hire for. 

Not only that, but your Live Receptionist personally screens and answers every phone call, allowing you to focus on the more nuanced aspects of your business. 

By using a Live Receptionist, you’re improving customer relations, reducing the risk of frustrating a caller by being inattentive, and most importantly, saving capital that can be reinvested into your business. 

With the mail forwarding add-on, you can reduce travel time, eliminate unneeded drives to the post office, and even save money on labor costs. 

The point is that there are several alternatives to finding the cheapest virtual office that will save you considerably more capital in the long run. Skimping on your Virtual Office is like skimping on the boat you expect to help you cross an ocean.

Further reading 

• What is a Virtual Office and How Does it Work? 
• Get a Virtual Address for LLC Registration 
• What Are Digital Products? Your Guide to Creating and Selling 
• Inflation vs Recession: What’s the Difference? 

Alliance Virtual Offices blows the cheapest virtual offices out of the water for countless reasons.  

First, the prestigious addresses that Alliance uses are unrivaled. Second, Alliance provides several different tools that integrate perfectly with their Virtual Offices and are built to help business owners scale.  

Third, Alliance has onsite staff who are ready and willing to help any business owner with any of the issues they might come up against. And finally, Alliance is a tried-and-true brand that has been serving customers for years. 

Our overwhelmingly positive TrustPilot reviews makes it very clear: our customers expect a lot from us, and we continue to deliver. 

For more information about why the cheapest virtual office isn’t the safest bet and additional business ownership tips, check out the Virtual Office Blog and contact us today for any other questions about Virtual Offices, entrepreneurship, and anything else related to the future of work! 

The post Is the Cheapest Virtual Office the Best Deal? first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

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• Will a recession hit in the near future? 
• What does a recession mean for your new business? 
• What does a recession mean for your established business? 
• “What does a recession mean for me?” and taking advantage of the tools you’re provided 

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Q: How would a recession affect the market? What does a recession mean for me and my business?
A: During a recession, the market takes a hit. Unemployment rates rise, people’s savings evaporate, and money doesn’t go as far as it previously did. For your business, this time of economic uncertainty can be a great time to focus on growth, dial in your product offerings, and solidify your teams.

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In times of economic crisis, the public may be asking, “What does a recession mean for me?” 

This uncertainty is contagious, especially when inflation concerns are everywhere you look. 

Economic confidence is quickly eroding. In May, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index fell an additional 6 points, from -39 to -45. 

Several economists are warning of an impending recession; other economists are claiming that a recession is already here. 

The fact of the matter likely lies somewhere between these two assertions, but regardless of how you interpret our current situation, economic trouble is ahead. 

So, what can you do? What does a recession mean for the average person? What does a recession mean for the economy in general? 

In this article, we’ll be answering questions like these and many more. 

First, we’ll take a look at whether or not a recession will hit in the near future.  

Then, we’ll ask what a recession means for your new business, and what a recession means for your established business. Finally, we’ll take a look at how to take advantage of the tools you have at your disposal. 

So, if you’ve ever asked, “what does a global recession mean for me?” – then you’re in the right place.  

Keep reading for plenty of actionable tips on surviving times of economic fear! 

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• Will a recession hit in the near future? 
• What does a recession mean for your new business? 
• What does a recession mean for your established business? 
• “What does a recession mean for me?” and taking advantage of the tools you’re provided 

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Will a recession hit in the near future? 

 

While asking “What does a recession mean for me?” is a great place to start when preparing for economic turmoil, you’ll need to do a bit more to get truly prepared. 

There is a high probability that a recession will hit in the near future. In addition, several indicators are pointing to further declines in the market. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of these indicators: 

• Inflation is high 
• Economists are worried 
• Fluctuations are normal in the market 

Inflation is high 

Across all sectors, inflation is high. 

People are spending more on the basic things they need to survive, from housing to groceries to gas. 

This leaves them with less purchasing power than they would normally have and inevitably slows economic activity as a whole. 

Economists are worried  

Numerous economists and industry leaders are confident that a recession will hit soon. 

Firms like Ned Davis are issuing stark warnings, and several major news sources are sounding the alarms. 

Not only does this point to the likelihood of a recession, but it can also influence economic activity and further increases the probability of a recession. 
 

When everyone is preparing for a recession, they’re typically saving money if they’re able, buying less, and overall contributing less to the GDP.  

Sure, recessions would still happen if no one saved money, but often the public’s financial sentiment has a demonstrably negative effect on the economy. 

Fluctuations are normal in the Market 

Contrary to popular belief, the market can’t just go up forever. 

Conversely, the more data we have, the better we can predict upcoming recessions. That said, there will always be slight variations in the length and exact date they occur. 

Even in the rare instance that economists are wrong, and we aren’t on the precipice of an economic recession, they’re a standard part of any healthy market.  

Therefore, it’s important to ask healthy questions like “what does a recession mean for the economy?” Doing so gives you a better insight into how a recession can impact your business, regardless of the current economy. 

However, understanding whether a recession is coming and understanding how to keep your new business running during a recession are two very different things.  

Below, we’ll answer questions like “What does a recession mean for inflation?” and other pertinent questions about the ramifications of an economic recession. 

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What does a recession mean for me and my new business? 

 

If you’re already thinking about questions like “what does a recession mean for me?” then it’s a good idea to figure out what moves your company will take to stay operational — especially if your business is just getting off the ground. 

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Read more: The Complete Guide to Making Your Business Recession Proof 

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The U.S. market may have experienced its first positive quarter this year, but the improvement was negligible, and economists are still worried about how the following months will look. 

For new businesses, this is the time to prepare and iron out any extraneous details in your operations.  

Below, we’ve put together a list of some of the biggest challenges that your new business will face during an economic recession. 

• Less capital 
• Harder to raise 
• Expensive loans 
• Uncertain consumer demand 

Less capital 

Often, business owners will point to a lack of capital as the reason for their company’s collapse. 

Established businesses might have the war chests to weather recessions, but new small businesses usually haven’t had the time to save a meaningful amount of cash. 

Thanks to digital tools like virtual offices and other shared workspaces, modern digital businesses don’t have the same fiduciary burden that traditional businesses might’ve had in previous recessions.  

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Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Offices 

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Regardless, having access to spare capital is important for every business, and an economic recession only accentuates this need. 

Harder to raise 

Finding investors can be much more difficult in a recession. 

Investment firms have an edge, but downturns in the market will impact their portfolios, meaning that investors have fewer resources. 

Because investors deal with the same emotions as the rest of us, many of them are feeling generally pessimistic and unwilling to take a chance during these downturns, making it difficult to acquire venture capital. 

Expensive loans 

To make matters worse, business lines are expected to be much more costly. 

The Federal Reserve just approved another 0.75% interest rate hike in an effort to try to slow demand and cool the economy, meaning Americans are experiencing the highest rates seen since 2008. 

This cooling period is unwelcomed, but needed.  

The previous bull market — a period of continued economic growth — ended with the pandemic but lasted an unprecedented 11 years. 

The interest rate refers to the rate you’ll pay when you borrow money, be it for cars, credit cards, or any other industry that includes finance. Therefore, when The Fed raises the interest rate, business loans become inherently more expensive. 

Uncertain consumer demand 

One of the most noticeable aspects of an economic recession is reduced consumer demand. 

Loans are more expensive, money doesn’t go as far, and everyone is fearful, so it only makes sense that consumer demand is lower during a recession. 

Some great ways to combat uncertain demand are making use of your current inventory, cutting out inefficient steps in your business’s operations, and honing in on your target audience. 

The solution? 

Stay small, capitalize on e-commerce, and outmaneuver your competitors. 

If you can keep operating costs low, you can keep prices low while still reaching your target market.  

From there, you can position yourself as a cheap alternative to existing products or services, winning the customers that leave your competitors. This allows you to grow through the recession and build a solid infrastructure that will serve you on the other side of the recession. 

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What does a recession mean for me and my established business? 

 

The impact a recession will have on an established business is a bit different than the effect it’ll have on a brand-new one. 

Outside of economist predictions and rising inflation rates, other signals are looming. 

New small businesses are typically just worried about surviving the downturn, but established businesses have to juggle maintaining their market share, ample competition, expensive overhead, and several other factors. 

So you’re still wondering, “What does a recession mean for me and my established business?”  

Read on to learn more about: 

• Fluctuating prices 
• Increase in cost of supplies 
• Supply chain issues 
• Limited budget 

Fluctuating price 

As an established business, a recession often forces you to raise prices.  

Across the board, prices are all over the place.  

For instance, while many may be wondering what a recession means for the housing market, the answer is nuanced. 

Established businesses are more likely to be in a position where price fluctuations have a more severe effect, especially when suppliers are involved. 

Increase in the cost of supplies 

Similarly, the cost of supplies themselves often increases during a recession. 

Often, established businesses will have longstanding relationships and by extension, consistent pricing for raw materials.  

However, a recession can cause your average profit margin to grow tighter, meaning business leaders will need to think of creative ways to make up for the losses. 

Supply chain issues 

As we learned during the pandemic, supply chain problems can have an astronomical effect on the price of consumer goods. 

Just look at the recent rise in beef prices. Increased demand raised the cost of meat during the pandemic, and continued supply chain problems with vaccines and fertilizer further exacerbated the price. 

Fortunately, there are several methods available for established entrepreneurs to use to solidify their supply chains. 

Be it establishing better relationships with suppliers, more precise gauging of customer demand, or focusing more energy on digital operations, there are many ways to rectify supply chain problems. 

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Read more: Small Business Supply Chain Optimization: Get What You Need to Grow 

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At the will of your budget 

Companies with the biggest reserves and widest audience are in the best position for any recession.  

If you don’t have the capital to make it through, you’re in a position where raising money is more difficult and getting loans is more expensive. 

This leads to many businesses being defined by their budget during times of economic struggle.  

If you don’t have the funds to capitalize on the opportunities that the market presents, then you’re stuck on the sidelines, hoping for better market sentiment. 

Fortunately, there are several ways to rectify the aforementioned issues, including: 

• Raising prices 
• Reducing marketing budget 
• Cutting unnecessary spending 

Raising prices 

During an economic recession, many businesses will begin raising their prices. 

With supply chain problems, ubiquitous inflation fears, and continued negative market sentiment, businesses begin scrambling to secure profits anywhere they’re able. 

During a recession, this will only result in more losses. 

Your customers don’t have the funds to accommodate price increases because everyone is in a similar boat. Raising prices is a short-term solution to what might be a fairly long-term problem. 

Sure, you can explain a price hike when you’re changing materials or using a more sustainable source, but when you’re changing prices as the public is losing money, most consumers will just go without. 

If these customers stop buying, they’ll search for lower-cost alternatives. 

A slight rise in prices is explainable, and to a certain point, expected. The issue arises when you begin using your customers to make up for inefficiencies within your operations. 

Reducing marketing budget 

Other businesses will attempt to reduce their marketing budget. 

The idea of removing extraneous costs is good, but eliminating marketing initiatives is still short-sighted. 

Consumers have a shorter memory than ever before. If you’re harder to find online and potential customers aren’t regularly interacting with your content, it’ll be more difficult to bring those customers back in when the market turns around. 

When consumer spending power drops, businesses need to find a way to replace the customers that no longer make purchases. If you cut marketing budgets, you won’t be able to do that. 

Cutting unnecessary spending 

Rather than removing a valuable way to connect with consumers or alienating them, the solution is to cut unnecessary spending so that you can maintain your marketing budget and keep your prices competitive. 

As it stands, the best way to do this is to shift to virtual operations. 

This doesn’t mean that you need to forget about your business’s physical location — it simply means that focusing on digital operations is a safer and more effective way of doing business during an economic recession. 

Digital businesses are more likely to see quicker turnaround times, cost-efficient overhead, and incredible margins. Plus, there are countless tools that business owners have at their disposal. 

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Read more: Resources for Small Businesses: Top Free and Affordable Tools for Entrepreneurs to Grow a Business 

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These tools and the flexible nature of digital business give entrepreneurs an outstanding way to get through any economic recession. 

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Taking Advantage of the Tools Provided 

 

An incoming recession is likely. 

If you’re a new business, your focus should be on connecting with consumers who leave your competition because of their diminished purchasing power — and winning them over. 

With e-commerce projections showing continued growth, new businesses have the unique opportunity to use an economic recession as a time for positioning and increasing brand loyalty. 

Outside of using the time for better positioning, the number one goal for any brand-new business operating through a recession should be to keep surviving. 

If you’re an established business, you should switch to virtual operations to keep prices low and connect with new customers. 

Virtual operations give business owners a chance to explore countless digital tools and automation services that make running a business a breeze. 

Consider a virtual office from Alliance Virtual Offices. These offices are a cost-efficient alternative to their traditional counterparts. 

Historically, a standard commercial lease is going to last a minimum of three years. Additionally, business owners are responsible for keeping their office building stocked, utilities paid, and employees provided for. 

With a virtual office, business owners have plan packages that start at a minimum of six months and access to private meeting rooms means whenever you need it. 

To round out our offices, each location uses a professional and well-known business address that you can use to add legitimacy to all of your operations. Don’t settle for virtual addresses that aren’t backed by space or use a simple P.O. box — a high-quality virtual office is worth it. 

Outside of a virtual office,  Alliance Virtual Offices has other digital tools that can help any business weather an economic recession. 

Our Live Receptionist presents an effective way to reduce labor costs and simplify your daily interactions. 

Although you’ll want to be cutting out as many unnecessary positions as possible during a recession, answering the phone yourself is a recipe for disaster, especially if you’re hoping to focus on your business’s core operations.  

You risk upsetting customers because of inattention and making business mistakes by trying to be your own receptionist. 

Why not avoid the situation altogether? 

Using our Live Receptionist service, you have friendly and professional receptionists ensuring that all of your phone calls are personally answered and screened. This gives you the time you need to focus on scaling your operations. 

In addition to the receptionists, Alliance Virtual Offices also provides virtual phone numbers to help integrate your business and retain privacy. 

Trying to juggle your personal life with your business’s operations is a nightmare waiting to happen, and there’s no practical way to create a healthy work-life balance when you’re always carrying total access to your business in your pocket. 

With a virtual phone number, you can cultivate a healthy work-life balance and leave your work phone at home. 

Unlimited extensions mean that you have an easy and streamlined way to onboard new team members, and the cloud-based technology of the phone numbers allows you to take calls from anywhere you’re working. 

These solutions are a cost-effective way to make it through lengthy periods of economic downturn. They are so useful that you’ll likely continue using them when the market turns around. 

Understanding the question, “What does a recession mean for me?” is key to understanding that recessions are a normal part of market cycles. Through careful planning and preparation, your business can make it through anything. 

In addition to the aforementioned digital tools, Alliance Virtual Offices provides meeting rooms and coworking spaces that gives business owners a place to host meetings with potential investors, clients, and new team members — while simultaneously also giving team members a place to get work done.  

Whatever your business needs, Alliance Virtual Offices is ready to provide a solution. 

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Further reading 

• The Complete Guide to Making Your Business Recession Proof 
• The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Offices 
• Resources for Small Businesses: Top Free and Affordable Tools for Entrepreneurs to Grow a Business 
• Small Business Supply Chain Optimization: Get What You Need to Grow 

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Alliance Virtual Offices provides several digital tools for established entrepreneurs, possible business owners, and everyone else that’s in between. 

If you’re searching for a better way to scale your business, tools to help you manage your workload, or a better way to connect with your employees, we’ve got you covered. 

Contact us today to see how Alliance Virtual Offices can help your business prepare for a recession. 

The post What Does a Recession Mean for Me and My Business? first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• What are spam risk calls? 
• How spam calls hurt your business 
• What is the solution? 

Q: Why do spam callers keep calling me? 

A: If you’re being completely inundated with spam calls, your phone number has probably been leaked to third parties. Anytime you enter your phone number on the web, you run the risk of it being leaked. Even the most reputable telecom companies may actually sell your phone number and other data to third parties, making spam calls very common in the modern era.  

In 2021, CNBC reported that Americans had lost almost $30 billion dollars to phone scams during the past year.  

If you own a cell phone, you’re probably familiar with these spam calls and relentless scams. Maybe you’ve fallen victim yourself. 

Of the 60 million Americans that lost money during 2021, almost 20% were scammed more than once. This means that scam artists are being extremely creative, constantly using different methods to catch people out.  

If you learn to avoid one type of scam, they change their tune and try another strategy. 

It’s a relentless battle – one that is threatening to overwhelm the FTC and telecom carriers in the United States.  

While we’re not exactly sure why spam calls and scams have become so rampant, the pandemic seems to be the culprit. 

Some believe that with so many people staying home and spending time online, spammers and scammers have seen this as an opportunity to increase their activities and target America’s most vulnerable individuals.  

At first, it seemed like we were finally getting a break from robo calls since quarantines closed down call centers. However, after an initial slump, spam calls returned with a vengeance. Now they’re more prevalent than ever before.  

And for the most part, spammers have been extremely successful – with more Americans falling victim than ever before.  

But as bad as this might seem, we aren’t completely defenseless.  

The FTC is constantly suing companies for calling people without their permission.  

Cellular carriers have another trick up their sleeve which involves labeling certain numbers as “spam risk calls.” 

But what exactly is a spam risk call? 

And are they really as bad as they seem? 

What if you’re missing out on real business opportunities by ignoring spam risk calls? 

• What are spam risk calls? 
• How spam calls hurt your business 
• What is the solution? 

What are spam risk calls? 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the meaning behind spam risk calls.  

If you see the words “spam risk” pop up on your phone, there’s a likelihood you’re being contacted by a spam caller.  

You might see variations of “spam risk,” such as: 

But how does your phone automatically know which numbers are associated with spam risk calls? iPhone technology might be advanced, but it’s not responsible for labeling these risky calls: 

It’s your carrier.  

Carriers use complex classification and clustering algorithms to identify spam indicators and spam-likely calls. This machine learning can be supervised and unsupervised.  

Despite their best efforts, scam artists leave behind plenty of clues for these algorithms to follow. Once the AI spots specific patterns in their traffic network, it can flag them as spam risks and add them to a database shared with the entire cellular network.  

The algorithm looks at a number of factors, including: 

For example, if a number suddenly appears in the network and makes 50,000 calls in a single hour, the algorithm would almost certainly flag that number as “spam likely.”  

The three largest carriers in the United States have all partnered with different providers of analytics engines to facilitate this machine learning process, including: 

• AT&T partnering with Hiya 
• Verizon partnering with TNS 
• T-Mobile partnering with First Orion 

Last year, PEW likened the constant battle between spammers and regulators to a game of “Whac-A-Mole,” stating that each time the authorities manage to crack down on one strategy, spammers simply switch to a new one.  

These new strategies include: 

• Sending messages straight to voicemail (without your phone ringing) 
• Spoofing local area codes near you, making you think it’s someone in your state or city 
• The “grandchild scam,” which involves demanding bail money for a grandchild who has been incarcerated (even though the grandchild was never charged with a crime) 

According to PEW, it only costs $1,000 to purchase 3 million phone numbers in a given area. Even if one person falls for the scam and hands over $10,000, this represents a profit.  

Spam vs. Scams 

It’s important to understand the difference between “spam” and “scam.” Although the two might seem like virtually identical concepts, there are actually a few notable differences: 

Spam 

Scam 

As you can see, spam is clearly not as bad as scams. While spam might be annoying, it is usually carried out by legitimate businesses who are trying to sell you something real.  

Spam can be illegal under certain circumstances, but scams are always against the law.  

This presents a bit of a catch-22.  

The only way to tell whether spam risk calls are fraudulent is to pick up the phone. But by doing so, you run the risk of being scammed.  

How spam risk calls hurt your business 

But wait a second… 

How do you know for sure that a “spam risk call” isn’t a legitimate business trying to reach you with a lucrative offer? 

Could some of these major carriers be making mistakes? 

Could your spam risk calls be mislabeled? 

The truth is that this is a very real threat, as machine learning systems are never perfect – at least not yet. Many companies have complained of being mislabeled as “spam risk” even though their activities are completely legal.  

But how does this happen? 

One potential explanation is the tendency for modern people to reject calls without picking them up.  

When some people see an unfamiliar number, they might reject it instinctively. This means that some businesses get tons of rejected calls – even though they’re completely legitimate.  

An algorithm might see this and label the company as a spam risk, even though they’re trying to sell real products or services.  

Other companies are incorrectly labeled as spammers simply because they make thousands of calls per day. While this might be slightly suspicious, the company might be operating at a large scale.  

Whatever the reason, incorrectly-labeled spam risk calls can have a major effect on your business – especially if you’re trying to make deals with other organizations. 

For example, you might need a supplier for a new product you’re planning to sell. Maybe you need a manufacturer to actually build your new product.  

Perhaps you need another company to help you with certain aspects of your business, and you’re waiting for someone to approach you with a contract offer.  

Your entire business model might be B2B, and you might depend on only a few sales per year with major companies.  

Maybe you’ve been waiting for months for leads for your B2B business – praying for someone to call you. But all you’re getting is spam risk calls. Block these calls, and you could miss out on the leads you’ve been waiting for.   

Missing a single business opportunity because of a faulty spam identification algorithm can be extremely detrimental to your business.  

Run a quick Google search, and you’ll find that many businesses are complaining of this exact problem. They are trying desperately to have the dreaded “spam risk” label removed from their calls, but it isn’t always easy.  

Generally speaking, major carriers like AT&T believe that this is an acceptable cost in exchange for protecting their customers. If a few legitimate businesses are mislabeled, then so be it. 

In other words, major carriers aren’t going to improve their system anytime soon – which means that you need to take a slightly different approach if you want to avoid missing out on legitimate business opportunities.  

What is the solution? 

Let’s face it: 

No business owner wants to pick up every single spam risk call they receive.  

If you answered the phone every time, you’d have to sit through hours of spammers and robocalls every day.  

And even if you finally managed to connect with someone offering a legitimate business opportunity, you’d have to spend even longer trying to figure out whether the offer makes sense for your company.  

Answering the phone constantly will quickly drain away your valuable time, making it almost impossible to run your business.  

In addition, it can be extremely stressful to hear the same scams and pre-recorded messages constantly throughout the day.  

This leads to a “no-win” situation: 

On one hand, you can’t afford to miss out on spam risk calls that could be mislabeled legitimate businesses.  

But on the other hand, you can’t afford to waste your time answering every single call – blindly hoping that there’s a valuable lead buried in the deluge of spam.  

Fortunately, there’s a viable solution to this problem.  

Let someone else handle your phone calls.  

Yes, it’s really that simple. 

Hire a receptionist, and you can offload this time-consuming task onto someone whose entire job description revolves around answering the phone.  

Your receptionist will happily sift through the haystack of spam calls until they find the needle of a legitimate lead.  

Not only that, but they can take notes and record basic information that you can review before returning calls. If it seems as though a business opportunity doesn’t really fit with your goals, you can cross that number off your list.  

This gives you more time to focus on growing your business, and it can help make your entire operation much more efficient. 

Because let’s face it – you didn’t achieve entrepreneurial success because you’re good at answering phones. You need to dedicate your time towards the skills you are proficient in, such as marketing, product development, negotiating deals, and so on.  

But one issue with a receptionist is their cost. 

Not only that, but they need some kind of office space to answer your calls. If you’re operating a remote business or you have a mobile service, you don’t have anywhere to put your receptionist. 

Does it really make sense to rent an office space for the sole purpose of hiring a receptionist?  

Of course not. 

So you’re back at square one. 

Unless you use Alliance Virtual Office’s Live Receptionist service. 

Alliance Virtual Offices can connect you with a Live Receptionist who works remotely. For just $99 per month, these remote workers will answer your calls during business hours, without the need to rent an office space.  

Luckily, Live Receptionists can be just as effective as an in-house receptionist. Not only can they answer your calls, but they can also explain basic information about your business and take notes.  

From there, you can decide who you’d like to call back at the end of the day.  

This solution gives you the best of both worlds: 

You can answer spam risk calls without actually sacrificing any of your valuable time.  

This could be the only thing that is holding your business back from true success. There could be a treasure trove of leads and business opportunities hidden among the deluge of spam risk calls you receive each day.  

With a price tag of just $99 per month, hiring a Live Receptionist through Alliance Virtual Offices is probably one of the most affordable investments your business can make.  

Moving forward with spam risk calls 

While it’s understandable if you’d like to steer clear of spam risk calls altogether, it’s important to note that you may lose out on serious opportunities.  

If you want to ensure that important leads aren’t slipping through the cracks, consider a Live Receptionist service from Alliance Virtual Offices.  

Further reading 

• Robocallers Try New Tactics to Evade Crackdowns | The Pew Charitable Trusts  
• What is Spam Risk? Why the message appears on your phone, and how to block calls associated with it. 
• Scammers Hate Us: Only Legitimate Businesses Use Our Virtual Offices  
• Americans lost $29.8 billion to phone scams alone over the past year 

Alliance Virtual Offices has been providing companies with a range of services for many years, including virtual offices, virtual phone lines, mail forwarding, on-demand meeting rooms, and of course Live Receptionists.  

To explore your options in more depth, reach out to Alliance Virtual Offices and speak with one of our team members today.  

The post Are Spam Calls Actually Business Opportunities? first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• How to hire employees for a small business 
• What happens after you hire? 
• How do you retain your best employees? 

Q: How can I make good hires for my small business? Then, what can I do to retain the various employees I hire?
A: Learning how to hire employees for a small business is as simple as learning how to create an environment where individuals want to work. This doesn’t mean that you have to pay the highest salary or provide the biggest bonus, it means that you need to treat your employees well, provide open lines of communication, and incentivize creativity and innovation.

• How to hire employees for a small business 
• What happens after you hire? 
• How do you retain your best employees? 
• Small businesses and remote employees 

How to hire employees for a small business 

If you want to know how to hire employees for a small business, you’re in the right place. 

Below, we’ve created an actionable guide that details each step in the process of learning how to find good employees for a small business. 

• Cultivate a healthy environment 
• Utilize general job boards 
• Consider freelancers and contractors  
• Set clear expectations, right out of the gate 
• Remote interviews 
• In-person interviews 

Cultivate a healthy environment 

The key to understanding how to hire the right employees for your small business is to create a company that attracts excited, passionate employees. 

Some research has suggested that approximately half the U.S. workers employed are unhappy in their current position, with a staggering 25% claiming to have considered quitting.  

Often, this unhappiness stems from feelings of frustration or burnout, and as an employer, you can provide healthy outlets and a welcoming community to help eliminate these feelings. 

E-commerce sales are booming, and barring a global depression, that trend doesn’t look to be slowing any time soon. Leveraging the proliferation of e-commerce and remote work is a great way to not only find the right employees but also scale your business. 

Utilize general job boards 

Knowing how to hire staff for a small business means knowing how to utilize free job boards and other cost-efficient methods of finding employees. Platforms like Indeed and Monster are excellent places to start. 

Indeed 

Indeed, according to the September 2021 Comscore results, is the number one job website in the world. With Indeed, you have more competition in the hunt for employees, but the high traffic on the website gives you a better chance than some lesser-known platforms. 

Monster 

Created almost 30 years ago, Monster is another popular job search network.  

While Monster isn’t ranked as high as Indeed, it’s still one of the most used job-searching platforms around, and the smooth user interface and intuitive website design makes it easy to figure out, even if you’re someone who considers yourself technologically illiterate. 

With both platforms, you can set your distance preferences, so you only pull talent from the area you want. 

Consider freelancers and contractors 

Depending on your business, freelancers and contractors offer an excellent way to save money on onboarding and training costs. 

Sure, if you’re searching for long-term positions or positions that require niche knowledge, these professionals might not be right for your business.  

That said, an understanding of how to hire employees for a small business will help you understand when you should look for a full-time employee, and when you should look for a freelancer. 

Platforms like Upwork are an excellent way to connect with freelancers and contractors for specific jobs. 

On platforms like Indeed and Monster, you’re typically searching for an individual to fill a full-time position — after necessary and company-specific probationary periods, of course. 

On Upwork, however, you can search for individuals to complete specific tasks for a predetermined payment. 

For instance, if you want to build a website that stands out from other sites, you may consider searching on Upwork for an web designer to build your platform. 

In this case, the freelancer or contractor will build the website, you will pay them, and the relationship ends. Because you’re only hiring these individuals for specific tasks, you aren’t responsible for offering benefits, insurance, or other extras associated with traditional employment. 

Set clear expectations, right out of the gate 

The key to realizing how to hire employees for a small business is being crystal clear with what you expect from your workers. With remote employees especially, setting clear expectations immediately goes a long way in preventing burnout. 

By doing so, you’re letting potential employees know exactly what is expected of them and the outcomes you hope to see. Knowing the desired outcome will allow you to set your criteria for evaluating resumes. 

Sifting through resumes takes a lot of time that could be better spent on your business’s operations.  

Once you know exactly what you’re looking for, going through applications and resumes becomes considerably less stressful and time-consuming. Namely, because all you have to do is evaluate based on the predetermined criteria to narrow down your list of applicants. 

Another benefit of setting clear expectations is that you now have an easy metric by which you can grade new employees. 

Identifying problem employees immediately, before they’re able to affect your business’s infrastructure or culture, allows you to make the necessary changes to find an employee that will be with your company for a long time. 

Remote interviews 

Remote employees are all too familiar with the struggle of remote interviews, and for remote businesses, this part can be particularly tricky. 

Conducting online interviews from home can set the wrong first impression, making you seem less professional than you are and sending the wrong message to incoming employees. 

While remote interviews often lack the personality and physical connection of traditional interviews, they provide a wider variety of workers to interview for your business, giving yourself access to a more diverse talent pool. 

In-person interviews 

Although in-person interviews are naturally more personable than their virtual counterparts, they too require a clean space to meet and conduct the interview. 

Without a dedicated space, this can be difficult. 

For the most successful interviews, remote, in-person, or otherwise, a virtual office is the ideal solution. 

With Alliance Virtual Offices, you can access an office equipped with meeting rooms perfect for conducting online interviews, allowing you to avoid conducting the meetings from home. 

Similarly, for in-person interviews, you can use the same, easily reservable, meeting rooms with a designated space for these meetings. 

Now that you’ve got an understanding of how to hire employees for a small business, let’s take a look at the actual logistics of hiring and what you need to provide for your employees. 

• EIN 
• Your Employer Identification Number. It acts as your business’s social security number and is used for any business credit you might receive. It’s also used for your employee’s tax returns and various other documents. 
• Determine if you need state IDs or local tax IDs 
• This is state-specific. Use the U.S. Small Business Administration website to determine what state-specific regulations you need to be aware of when hiring. 
• Make sure your employees complete their W-4 forms 
• Failing to file W-4 forms will result in fines for you or your employee and can lead to bigger problems with the IRS. 
• Decide how you’ll handle payroll 
• In the modern world, convenience is king. Several payroll platforms automate the process entirely for you, like Paychex or Gusto. 
• As you grow and hire more employees, ensure that you’re keeping good books. 
• Platforms like Intuit Quickbooks function like payroll applications but focus on bookkeeping rather than payroll. 
   

Remember, as you begin to hire more employees, your bookkeeping will be considerably more complicated. You must be careful with your accounting so that you never find yourself on the receiving end of a surprise audit. 

Read more: Leveling Up Your E-Commerce Operations? These Are the Most Effective E-Commerce Tools Imaginable 

How to keep employees motivated 

Now that you’re familiar with how to hire employees for a small business, it’s time to determine what to do to keep your employees motivated. 

The key is to provide them with everything they need to love what they do. 

We’ve put together a brief list of methods you can employ to keep your workers content, motivated, and productive. Keep reading! 

• Provide open lines of communication 
• Give and receive feedback 
• Create a flexible environment 
• Focus on collaboration 

Provide open lines of communication 

You don’t necessarily need to give your employees total access to your cellphone number 24/7, but you should try to create multiple lines of communication.  

You want your small business employees to feel heard. Ensuring that they always have multiple avenues for any questions or concerns goes a long way toward cultivating a healthy working environment. 

To foster this sense of communication, start with small things. Try to start conversations before starting meetings , engage employees with jovial yet professional aphorisms, and frequently remind your teams of your open-door policy. 

Give and receive feedback 

Giving your employees the chance to give feedback will help you optimize infrastructure and grow as a business owner.  

The effectiveness and legitimacy of the feedback will undoubtedly vary, but keeping an open mind and being willing to make changes to improve your operations will help prepare your company for long-term success. 

Conversely, you should also be giving your employees feedback fairly regularly.  

Regular check-ins and brief updates help workers understand they’re doing well, where they can improve, as well as help them learn and grow with your business, inevitably making them exponentially more productive. 

For the feedback you give, consider short, bi-weekly notes for your employees about their performance.  

For feedback received, set up a virtual drop box where employees can leave suggestions, comments, or concerns. Also, send monthly feedback requests to your employees about your company’s performance over the past 30 days. 

Remember, feedback doesn’t have to be something that you or your employees should do better.  

Your employees need to feel appreciated, so outside of the regular feedback requests, try to remind your employees that their work is valued and recognized. 

Create a flexible environment 

Knowing how to employ staff in a small business is a bit different than simply knowing how to hire employees for a small business. 

Making good hires is hard, but keeping employees engaged and productive takes continued effort to create a flexible, creative, and driven workplace. 

The most efficient way to keep your business as flexible as possible is through the use of a virtual office. 

A high-quality virtual office allows you to register your business with a professional and well-known address, without being forced to pay for lengthy commercial space leases.  

Better yet, the best virtual offices are backed by physical space, so you have access to a private and professional workspace when you’d like to switch things up. 

Focus on collaboration 

Collaboration and decentralization go hand in hand. 

Focusing on collaboration means delegating responsibilities as effectively as you can.  

Rather than having one decision maker, give several employees the ability to make small, low-level decisions while you focus on expansion. 

To create a successful, collaborative environment in the workplace, have your employees work directly with one another. Streamline content creation, HTTP requests, or any other projects so that your team members are communicating with one another to meet deadlines. 

Once your traditional or remote employees are collaborating, you can focus on acquiring more work, scaling your operations, or exploring new markets.  

Read more: Time Away From Work? Set Your Business Up So You Can Step Away 

Recognizing how to keep your employees motivated and recognizing how to hire employees for a small business are separate issues, but if you make good hires, you stand a much better chance of motivating your employees. 

At the end of the day, you can’t motivate an employee that doesn’t want to be motivated. This is why it’s so important to make good hires and cut your losses when an employee isn’t working out. 

Taking the time to find individuals that are passionate about the work they’re going to be doing will help you to hire employees that are willing to stay with your company long term, while hiring any applicant with the resume requirements you’re looking for may not last as long. 

Additionally, cultivating an environment that welcomes innovation and friendly competition while still feeling safe allows you to easily motivate your teams. 

How to keep employees in the long run 

Knowing how to hire employees for a small business is essential to reducing turnover. Your key players will help your business thrive. 

With solid hires, your employees will build new infrastructures within your business and expand them to help you grow over time. To do that, you need to keep them around as long as you can. 

In the past, management was authoritarian. 

Teams had one manager that made all major decisions. Any ideas or deadlines were handled by that one individual and going above that person for help was seen as an act of insubordination. 

Now, businesses have evolved past this authoritarian style in favor of a collaborative style of management. 

To foster this sense of collaboration, you need to view your employees as collaborators rather than servants. Make space for their ideas and feedback. 

Give them the chance to experiment. If you hire individuals that you trust, you should trust them enough to let them take the reins occasionally. 

Giving them this freedom will add perspective to your business and build personal investment in your growth across your entire business. 

Small businesses and remote employees 

Building a small business means adding employees to your team. Remote businesses need a quiet, professional place to conduct interviews. 

With a Virtual Office, you can do just that while also supporting your whole team in their remote work. 

Thankfully, you know how to hire employees for a small business. Now, it’s time to take a look at some of the virtual tools you can use to increase motivation, improve retention, and continue expanding. 

Virtual offices are a modern answer to the e-commerce boom.  

Instead of being forced into expensive leases that start at a 3-year minimum and include utility charges and general upkeep, you can register your business in any state you’d like, with plans starting at an easy 6-month minimum. 

Alliance’s Virtual Offices allow you to register your business without using your home address, which means you don’t have to enter personal information into the public domain. This protects you from constant badgering by spam companies and allows you to retain a better work-life balance. 

Because all of our offices are backed by physical space, you have access to a professional business center whenever you want a break from your daily routine. For any client meetings, investor presentations, or new-employee training sessions, you have a stable location you can use whenever necessary. 

Alliance Virtual Offices also provides virtual phone numbers to help keep your company connected and private. 

Having a dedicated business phone number lends legitimacy and professionality to your business. With our virtual phone services, you can easily onboard new employees while building brand credibility and increasing consumer trust. 

We provide unlimited extensions so you can streamline the training process and quickly connect with new team members. 

There are many digital tools that you have at your disposal. Learning how to hire employees for a small business is a great step, but you’ll need to determine the best way to integrate various virtual solutions into your business’s operations for the best chance of long-term success. 

Further reading 

• Leveling Up Your E-Commerce Operations? These Are The Most Effective E-Commerce Tools Imaginable 
• Time Away From Work? Set Your Business Up So You Can Step Away 
• How to Set Up a Virtual Office 

Alliance Virtual Offices provides a suite of virtual services and tools for established entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and new business owners. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to the world of e-commerce or just starting to get your feet wet, we’ve got you covered. 

Check out our website for more information about the digital solutions we provide. Our Virtual Office setup is uncomplicated, and quick, and allows you to focus on cultivating a collaborative environment so you can focus on expansion. 

Outside of our Virtual Offices, we have several other tools that you can use for determining how to hire employees for a small business and how to keep these individuals motivated for the long term. 

Contact us today to see how Alliance can help your business make hires that last. 

The post How to Hire Employees for a Small Business first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• 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 most efficient business expansion strategy 
• Why infrastructure matters when expanding your business 
• What’s the best way to support your expansion? 

Q: Should I worry about business expansion? How will I know the time is right for my business to start worrying about expansion? 
A: Business expansion is an indispensable aspect of any company hoping to achieve long-term success. Building a strong business infrastructure and ensuring that your operations can handle the added volume is paramount to succeeding in business expansion. With a virtual office, your business can build out its infrastructure and prepare for the additional volume without risking the capital that was previously expected from traditional businesses. 

The idea of conquering new markets is intoxicating to any business owner hoping to lead a successful organization. 

Striving for new customers, new geography, and more profits can lead even the most established entrepreneur to make hasty decisions on the ever-present quest for business expansion. 

All too often, business owners hoping to strike gold will create an unfinished business expansion strategy that leads to disastrous effects for their existing business and prevents them from completing their expansion. 

So, how can you effectively handle business expansion without falling prey to the pitfalls typically associated with this growth? 

The answer is by remaining flexible and knowing when you are ready for growth. Similarly, you need to create a business expansion plan that caters to your strengths and prevents weaknesses from stopping you in your tracks. 

In this article, we’ll look at the most efficient business expansion strategy, the importance of a robust infrastructure, and the best way to support your expansion.  

Additionally, we’ll look at the various kinds of business expansion and provide some essential information about these different methods as we explore what makes targeting new markets the best approach. 

• The most efficient business expansion strategy 
• Why infrastructure matters when expanding your business 
• What’s the best way to support your expansion? 

The most efficient business expansion strategy 

Business expansion refers to any growth in a business’s revenue or offerings. 

Because of this incredibly open-ended definition, there are several ways that you can prepare your brand for the difficulties of small business growth. 

Below, we’ve listed various kinds of business growth that fall under the vague meaning of the term: 

1. Introduction of new products 

This kind of business expansion relies on your development of new products that you can take to market. Introducing new products typically requires sizable capital because of the research and development phases in conjunction with testing the market’s reaction to the new products. 

2. Licensing  

Licensing can be an incredibly profitable way to expand your business, but if you’re not providing a proprietary service or product, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to effectively profit from any licensing deals.  

3. Franchising  

Similar to licensing, you would have to have a very specific kind of business for franchising to be an effective method of business expansion. While franchising might be good for a restaurant or retail store, it probably isn’t going to be the most effective method for more modern digital businesses. 

4. Targeting new markets with existing offerings 

This is almost always going to be your safest and most effective bet. Targeting new markets with your existing offerings doesn’t require research and development or patent know-how like the other kinds of business expansion.  

The most common kind of business expansion opportunities come from simply introducing your existing business to new markets 

Because you’re not coming up with any new products, this requires less building and less innovation while still allowing your business to tap into new revenue and capital. 

Approximately 71% of American adults are chiefly concerned with addressing our weakened economy.  

As more of the public continues to ask the government for guidance, the companies that successfully manage their business expansion will be rewarded once the economy is back on its feet. 

Read more: Public’s Top Priority for 2022: Strengthening the Nation’s Economy 

To stand out amid our worsening economy, you’ll need to take the most cost-effective and low-risk business expansion ideas to heart.  

In the past, targeting a new market with your existing offerings relied on opening new physical locations, an expensive and risky move in any kind of market.  

Thankfully, approaching this kind of business expansion in the modern market is less risky. 

Digital marketing allows businesses to tap new markets by leveraging their existing customer base and finding similar niches throughout the world. Thanks to the precision of online advertising, connecting with ideal customers is cost-effective and simple.  

With the right digital marketing initiative, you’re unrestricted by geography and able to connect to your target market anywhere.  

That said, businesses must prepare for this kind of expansion. 

If you don’t have a business expansion plan prepared for how you intend on handling this growth, you’ll likely hit barriers that limit your opportunities. 

This could be a decline in the quality of your products due to the influx of business, long lead times for products you’ve promised customers, poor inventory management, or a loss of reputation because of a combination of these things. 

Regardless of what could be your downfall; sound infrastructure and a detailed business expansion plan will ensure that you don’t have any of these issues. 

Why infrastructure matters when expanding your business 

Before you start acting on your business expansion ideas, you need to build your company’s infrastructure up so you can handle the added business. 

As things ramp up, you’ll be busier than ever. With so much going on around you, you won’t have time or clarity to worry about the supporting structures you need to scale. 

Small business owners are in a situation different from the majority of larger businesses because the inventory and staffing requirements are considerably less prohibitive than they are for larger companies. 

Similarly, small business owners have less that they need to focus on than bigger corporations. 

Read more: The lesson for Main Street from the Walmart, Target inventory failures 

By identifying weak points within your business and taking the necessary steps to rectify these issues, you’re giving your brand a fighting edge against competitors. 

Trying to expand without spending the necessary time on building your business infrastructure guarantees a slew of issues for your company. 

Therefore, it’s key to have these things built out before executing your business expansion strategy.  

Read more: The 6 Ways to Grow a Company 

Here are three critical aspects of your business infrastructure that you need to examine before focusing on business expansion: 

• Capital 
• Flexibility  
• Team capacity for growth 

Capital  

Before you start thinking about growing your business, you’ll first need to consider the capital you have to work with. 

To start, you’ll need to have an efficient business structure that frees capital for you to invest in your online growth strategy. If your turnaround times are long and money isn’t flowing quickly enough, it’ll be more difficult to allocate funds to the necessary customer acquisition initiatives. 

Once your business structure is efficient enough and provides a freer cash flow, you’ll be able to quickly reach new customers and see returns in a short timeframe. 

Flexibility 

Modern technology is moving at lightning speed. Every year, we achieve new things that didn’t even seem possible a few decades ago. 

To keep up with this ever-changing market, your business must be flexible. 

A flexible business can adapt as it goes without having to reorganize all of its operations to keep up with the times. If you’re tied to a traditional office and trying to wrangle two markets at once, you’ll have a more difficult time keeping up with the competition. 

The world of ecommerce is fast-paced and unforgiving. If your business is unable to react to changes in the market, you’ll always fall behind. 

Capacity for team growth 

Lastly, your team’s ability to grow is a key point of your infrastructure that you’ll want to put some serious thought into before you try and expand. 

Your business should be structured so new employees are easily brought in whenever necessary, without a lengthy and complicated training or onboarding process. 

With the additional volume brought to your operations via business expansion, the ability to make new hires fast is invaluable. Your growing business can quickly move beyond the scope of your existing team, and when that happens, you want to have the ability to add new team members easily to avoid dips in customer satisfaction. 

Alternatively, if you don’t want to worry about obstacles and have extra capital to spare, you could consider simply purchasing a small business that already has a strong infrastructure in place. 

Allowing another company to handle the heavy lifting associated with building a strong business infrastructure lets you focus on the most important aspect of running any business: profit. 

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

A robust business infrastructure allows you to handle the stresses of business expansion and makes the already difficult task of keeping up with new demand much easier. 

What’s the best way to support your expansion? 

In the modern world, it can be difficult to balance all of these elements at once. You need a modern solution that keeps you agile while also allowing you the convenience and utility of a dedicated work and meeting space. 

Alliance Virtual Offices provides the perfect solution. Our virtual offices are cost-efficient, loaded with amenities, and easy to secure. 

With a virtual office, you are no longer limited by traditional office space or the confines of your home.  

Below, we’ve listed some key reasons that a virtual office is necessary for effective business expansion. 

• Flexibility allows you to work anywhere 
• Streamlined onboarding processes 
• Highly cost-efficient 
• Lends professionality to your operations 
• Built to scale 
• Access to physical workspace 

Flexibility 

One of the pitfalls associated with remote work is the burnout that many entrepreneurs face after spending months inside working on their computers. 

Sure, the productivity of remote workers is typically much higher than the productivity of traditional office workers, but spending so much time working in the same area you rest, relax, and feed yourself can have terrible effects on any individual’s psyche. 

With a virtual office, you’re giving your business the flexibility it needs to react to the ebbs and flows of the market without sacrificing a central hub for your operations. You get all of the benefits of a traditional office without being tied to one location. 

Streamlined onboarding processes 

Sturdy business infrastructure is key to any business expansion strategy. With a virtual office, you can make meetings and training easier and more convenient. 

You’re able to work remotely without having to worry about where to host in-person events. Plus, on-demand meeting rooms mean that you can quickly book a space to meet with employees or clients, no matter how busy you are. 

Remote work support also means that you can hire employees from anywhere in the country, making it easy to grow your team as your business scales. 

Because of the flexibility afforded by a virtual office, there’s no relocating that needs to be done for faraway employees. The faster that new employees can get to work and coalesce with the existing team, the more you’ll be able to focus on business expansion. 

Highly cost-efficient 

The high price of traditional business expansion makes exploring new markets prohibitively expensive, with a virtual office, this isn’t a concern. 

A virtual office saves you money and allows you to keep investing in marketing to reach new customers. This lets you build your business faster without having to sacrifice the professionalism of traditional office space. 

Alliance Virtual Office gives business owners the chance to preserve capital and reinvest the savings into expanding their operations. 

Lends professionality to your business 

One of the biggest benefits to having a virtual office is the reputation your business is lent from using a well-known and professionally recognized address. 

If your financial services business is registered to an address that’s also used by Staples in Kansas, you likely won’t get the same attention that registering in New York’s financial district would give you. 

For all businesses, image is everything. With Alliance, all of our virtual offices are tied to professional addresses in established and industry-leading locations. 

Finding ways to add legitimacy to your business is important even outside of business expansion. Alliance allows your business to stand out in a sea of competitors. 

Built to scale 

Alliance’s virtual offices are the perfect way to prepare for future business expansion. 

The ease and convenience of securing a new location make virtual offices the perfect way to break into new markets with your existing offerings.  

Traditionally, this form of business expansion had serious capital requirements. Now, with a virtual office and digital marketing, you can connect with your target demographic without risking as much as was previously expected. 

Access to a physical workspace 

While remote operations are undoubtedly the best way to focus on business expansion, that doesn’t mean you should forego any access to a workspace outside of your home. 

Finding a routine is nice, but if you’re hoping to run a business, expand that business, eat, sleep, and relax, all from the same location, you will undoubtedly find yourself going a bit stir-crazy. 

With one of Alliance’s virtual offices, you’re able to focus on your remote operations while giving yourself a place you can go to break the dullness of your day-to-day work-from-home routine. 

In addition to the physical workspaces, you also have access to meeting rooms of varying sizes. With these meeting rooms, you no longer have to use crowded coffee shops or expensive hotel conference rooms to host important meetings. 

Training meetings, employee get-togethers, and investor meetings can be handled in the privacy of your own space. The helpful and friendly onsite staff ensure that any technical difficulties will be promptly dealt with as well. 

Business expansion is a risk no matter how you look at it. Alliance’s virtual offices simply negate a considerable amount of that risk and give you a fighting chance to stand out among countless competitors and increasingly picky consumers. 

Alliance Virtual Offices gives your business a scalable, cost-efficient, and professional way to expand without sacrificing any of the flexibility that remote work is known for.  

With a central hub for your operations and access to meeting rooms, physical workspaces, and locations in every state, there is no limit to how far your business expansion can take you. 

Leveraging your virtual office for business expansion 

Thanks to the dominance of e-commerce, business expansion has never been a more accessible or lower risk. 

That said, it’s crucial to set your business up for success before you attempt to tap into new markets. 

A virtual office is an ideal way to support your business as it scales into the future. Other virtual office solutions lack the benefits that Alliance provides. 

Whether it be less-than-professional addresses, addresses with no physical backing, glorified mail forwarding services, or virtual offices that provide no access to a workspace, other virtual offices simply don’t have the means to properly leverage their services towards your business’s expansion. 

With approximately 90% positive reviews on TrustPilot, our commitment to your brand’s success is proven. 

An Alliance Virtual Office is designed for established entrepreneurs hoping to take their business worldwide. 

With Alliance, you’re given all the tools you need to succeed.  

All that you need to focus on is building a robust business infrastructure to handle the extra work that comes with small business growth and finding the right digital marketing agency to help you reach your target demographic in new areas. 

Further Reading 

• Public’s Top Priority for 2022: Strengthening the Nation’s Economy 
• The 6 Ways to grow a Company 
• Your Shortcut To New Success – How To Buy A Small Business 
• The lesson for Main Street from the Walmart, Target inventory failures 

Alliance Virtual Offices provides several solutions for entrepreneurs focusing on business growth. 

With one of our virtual offices, you get access to a professional and well-known address that is backed by an always-available physical workspace. 

The pitfalls previously associated with small business growth are a thing of the past. Alliance’s virtual offices are the perfect central hub to launch your personalized business expansion strategy and being surrounded by other established and serious entrepreneurs provides the perfect environment for your company to focus on growth. 

Surrounding yourself with other individuals hoping to expand allows you to learn from your peers and get valuable insight into what is working for them and what is not. 

Aside from the professional environments provided by Alliance’s virtual offices, there are several other solutions that we offer to the motivated business owner. 

With a Live Receptionist, stressing about missed customer phone calls is a thing of the past. This friendly and reliable service ensures that all of your phone calls are screened, meaning you’ll never miss or have to multi-task through an important phone call again. 

Whether you’re an established entrepreneur trying to corner a brand-new market, a traditional business owner hoping to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the exploding e-commerce market, or a fledgling entrepreneur hoping to make a name for yourself, Alliance Virtual Offices has you covered. 

From virtual offices to secure and private business phone numbers, we’re here to ensure that your business has the tools it needs to succeed. 

Contact us today to see how our services can assist you throughout your business expansion.

The post How to Stay Flexible Through Your Business Expansion first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• Why some people object to our terms of agreement 
• Why our mail forwarding service is not a one-size fits all solution 
• Why the vast majority of people leave us positive reviews 

Q: Why are some of Alliance Virtual Offices’s reviews negative? How can I make sure that my business doesn’t receive negative reviews? 

A: While around 90 percent of our reviews are positive, the occasional negative virtual office review typically comes from customers who did not understand our terms and agreements about plan length and mail forwarding. Every business is going to get an occasional bad review, what separates successful businesses from unsuccessful businesses is the response to those reviews. 

Negative reviews are a thorn in the side of any business. 

No matter how excellent the service provided is, or how impressive the products are, negative reviews are undoubtedly going to happen. 

Even with the highest quality virtual offices in the industry, negative reviews are a part of doing business. What separates the strong, successful businesses from the ones destined to fail is the response to these reviews. 

Since 2016, Alliance’s virtual office reviews have been almost entirely positive

Despite our place as a high-level provider, we still have the occasional negative review.  

Granted, our negative reviews almost always are due to a misunderstanding rather than an issue with the functionality or quality of our services. 

Our virtual office reviews on TrustPilot are among the highest in the industry. With around 90% positive reviews, our commitment to providing excellent service is proven. 

Read more: Online reviews and ratings 

In this article, we’ll be exploring the reason for our occasional negative reviews as well as taking a look at why the vast majority of individuals leave us with positive reviews.  

Whether it be misunderstanding our term agreements or feeling frustrated by our mail forwarding service, the issues customers have with our services are always addressed and handled as professionally as possible. 

Keep reading to understand the reasoning behind negative reviews and for information on why it’s important to read all the reviews a company has, rather than exclusively seeking out the negative ones. 

Why some people object to our terms of agreement 

Alliance Virtual Offices does everything we can to explain to people what they’re signing up for. Our transparency is second to none in this industry. 

Despite our attempts to explain the term agreements in great detail, there is still the occasional customer feeling that they’ve been “trapped” in some way. 

This simply isn’t the case. 

Not only do we go out of our way to explain that the contracted agreement on every virtual office plan from Alliance is 6-months, but the individuals purchasing a virtual office plan from us are explicitly informed that they’re agreeing to pay for 6 months of service. 

This is non-negotiable and it’s for the safety of our community of professionals and entrepreneurs. However, we do everything we can to make this fact transparent. 

The individuals who complain about this are actively choosing to ignore the information presented to them at signup. We do everything in our power to make this clear, but we can’t force anyone to listen. 

As the age-old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. 

Read more: Why You Can’t Really Trust Negative Online Reviews 

That said, we are here to reiterate the fact that our virtual office plans are for a minimum of 6 months. 

We want you to be aware of the requirements and minimums before signing up so that you have the chance to make the decision that works best for you. 

Virtual office companies almost always have some sort of minimum, and this minimum is in place for a few reasons which we detail in the next section below. 

The difference between us and other industry competitors is we don’t hide it buried in the small print of our terms of service. We display it in multiple places on our product pages, in the checkout process, and explicitly tell everyone we speak to directly. 

Why does Alliance require a 6-month minimum on Virtual Offices? 

Below, we’ve listed a couple of these reasons to help explain why the 6-month minimum is in place and how the minimum benefits all the entrepreneurs that are using our virtual offices. 

1. Keeps illegitimate businesses and scammers away from our virtual offices 
2. Helps our workspaces remain professional 
3. The offices stay affordable 
    

Keeps Illegitimate Businesses and Scammers Away 

Internet schemes and business-to-business scams are ubiquitous. These kinds of scams will often use a fake virtual address or a register through other virtual address companies without physical-backed workspaces to create the illusion of a legitimate business. 

By keeping a 6-month minimum in place, scammers and illegitimate businesses are inherently incapable of using our services. These individuals won’t risk using their home addresses and don’t want to commit any longer than they need. 

The minimum helps ensure that these kinds of nefarious actors have no place in any Alliance virtual office. 

Helps Our Workspace Remain Professional 

One of the biggest benefits of using an Alliance virtual office is easy access to a professional workspace. 

With a 6-month minimum on each of our plans, we’re ensuring that the other individuals using our workspaces are just as serious about growing their businesses as you are. 

We pride ourselves on creating an environment that works not only as a hub for your remote operations but as an environment in which you can network and surround yourself with other established entrepreneurs. 

Keeping the workspaces professional is a benefit to all the businesses using our services. 

The saying “tell me who you surround yourself with, and I’ll tell you who you’ll become” has merit and surrounding yourself with other professionals is important to legitimize your business. 

The Office Stays affordable 

At Alliance, we pride ourselves on being a top-rated provider of virtual office services. 

Independently of our high ratings, we also pride ourselves in providing cost-efficient virtual offices for even the newest of entrepreneurs. 

Keeping a 6-month minimum for our plans allows us to keep our offices affordable. Additionally, a 6-moth plan ensures that the price of your office won’t be fluctuating month-to-month with the vicissitudes of the market. 

Virtual office reviews will often show you whether or not the reviewer made a point to read the clearly stated terms and agreements. 

Our 6-month minimum isn’t hidden or obfuscated in any way, and the minimum helps us continue to provide excellent service and professionalism to any business utilizing an Alliance virtual office. 

Why our mail forwarding service is not a one-size fits all solution 

While some negative virtual office reviews have to do with the 6-month agreement, another reason some people leave us with poor reviews is that they’re unhappy with our mail services. 

Let me explain. 

Again, this comes from those individuals neglecting to read or listen to the information we present to them. 

The way our mail forwarding works is we hold your mail securely in your virtual office center until you or a designated representative comes to pick it up. This ensures that your mail is always secure and safe. 

Optional mail forwarding is available for an additional fee. 

We aren’t trying to surprise anyone with this fee. That’s why it’s so clearly and plainly denoted across our website. 

Q: How often is my mail forwarded, and what is the cost? 

A: You can choose how often you wish to have mail forwarded. If you need mail forwarded monthly, it’s $5 per month plus postage costs. Mail forwarded every two weeks is $10 per month plus postage, and once per week is $20 plus postage. 

Why isn’t Mail Forwarding Standard on Virtual Offices Plans? 

Easy. Not everyone wants it. 

Instead of making those who don’t want mail forwarding pay for something they’ll never use, we make it voluntary, and charge a nominal price for those who want to add it to their service. 

Some businesses aren’t going to need mail forwarding because they’re doing most of their correspondence online.  

Other businesses are going to need a forwarding service because they’re receiving several important documents via mail. 

Virtual address companies will often tout a PO-box address that specializes in mail forwarding. 

While mail forwarding is a nice convenience to have, many businesses simply do not need to worry about it. 

What these virtual address companies won’t tell you is that the physical workspace and a professional and well-known physical address tied to your virtual office will do far more for your business than a simple mail forwarding service. 

Virtual office reviews will occasionally be focused on the reviewer’s confusion about mail forwarding instead of mentioning the unparalleled professionalism of having an address situated in a well-known commercial district.  

This isn’t to say it’s wrong to want mail forwarding, just that it’s absurd to think all businesses need the same services. 

Where our virtual office reviews will occasionally complain about our mail forwarding system, virtual address reviews complain about paying for a service they could easily get from the post office. 

Alliance Virtual Offices recognizes that not all businesses need the same services, and this is why the optional mail forwarding service isn’t included standard in the virtual office plan. 

The mail forwarding option has an associated fee because it keeps costs down across the board. With Alliance, you only pay for what you need. 

Why a Staggering Majority of Our Reviews Are Positive 

Despite occasional complaints, our virtual office reviews are typically around 90 percent positive. 

We do everything in our power to ensure that our customers feel good enough about our services to write positive Alliance Virtual Offices reviews.  

On the off chance a customer posts a negative review, we do everything in our power to contact that individual and try to iron out any disagreements. 

Read more: Making the Best of Bad Reviews 

Although our consistently positive reviews are due to a multitude of factors, we’ve identified three of the main reasons that our customers continue to leave positive virtual office reviews. 

1. We provide excellent service 
2. We create a professional and well-maintained environment 
3. We focus on convenience and flexibility  

Providing Excellent Service 

One of the main reasons for this is that Alliance Virtual Offices is dedicated to providing excellent service.  

From our customer support team to in-center staff, there is always a helpful team member ready to support you and your business. 

This commitment to communication has given us the chance to change negative virtual office reviews to positive ones.  

While a staggering majority of our negative virtual office reviews are due to customers’ misunderstanding or misreading of our clearly stated terms and agreements, there has been an occasional issue on our end. 

When these issues pop up, we make a point to immediately contact the customer and figure out what we can do to rectify the situation.  

Because of this, we’ve had a few customers change their negative virtual office reviews to positive reviews that reflect our commitment to excellent service. 

Focusing on providing the highest quality service to our customers before, during, and even after their virtual office plan has ended helps us retain customers, and provide tools for entrepreneurs to grow their business, which is reflected in our virtual office reviews. 

Creating a Professional and Well-Maintained Environment 

Alliance’s centers are extremely professional and well-maintained. 

While some virtual office companies are trying to suck liquidity away from business owners, we’re trying to give businesses an environment in which they can thrive and where their businesses can grow. 

We recognize that the more successful the businesses that use our services are, the more successful we become as a result. 

Virtual address companies are focused on convincing entrepreneurs to use their mail forwarding services and other virtual office companies are neglecting to mention that their offices are located inside a Staples office supply store. 

Alliance is focused on giving entrepreneurs the tools they need to succeed.  

Our onsite staff ensures that questions do not go unanswered and that if you run into an issue with your virtual office, we’re here to help you solve it. 

Focusing On Convenience and Flexibility 

Finally, Alliance Virtual Offices offers convenient and flexible solutions for on-demand work and meeting space. 

This makes us ideal for remote work, as you never have to worry about where you’ll meet or where to work when you’d like a break from the home office. 

Convenience and flexibility regarding where and how you’ll work are important to the success of any business, but for remote businesses, convenience and flexibility are paramount. 

Using Alliance Virtual Offices gives you a hub from which you can expand your remote operations, with on-demand access to physical workspaces around the world.

Similarly, having access to a professional workspace and various-sized meeting rooms allows you to handle the in-person parts of the job whenever necessary, without having to spring for a traditional office or conference room.  

These three main reasons might be why our virtual office reviews are so overwhelmingly positive, but without a high-quality office to back up our efforts, they would be for nothing. 

That said, you can be sure that any Alliance virtual office will come equipped with access to the following. 

• Professional and well-known addresses 
• Physical workspace whenever necessary 
• Meeting rooms when you need them 

Professional and well-known addresses 

Your virtual office is the hub for your remote operations. 

Once you’ve registered your business with your virtual office address, that address is going to be seen by potential investors, potential customers, would-be employees, and everyone in between. 

Your financial services business sharing an address with a random office supply store doesn’t inspire confidence in the same way that an address in New York’s financial district does. 

With so many businesses popping up, you need something that makes your business stand out. You could be offering guaranteed returns in an unprecedented bear market, but if your address doesn’t inspire confidence, there’s a chance no one will ever find out. 

Physical workspace 

The physical workspace access that comes with Alliance’s virtual offices greatly benefits any remote business. 

Working at home can be very mentally taxing. Especially if you don’t have anywhere else you can go to get your work done. 

Instead of being forced to work in a loud coffee shop with shady public Wi-Fi, you can reserve a spot in a friendly and professional workspace with other motivated entrepreneurs. Private office, coworking space, or corporate board rooms and meeting rooms, it’s your choice how you want to work. 

Just like having a professional address invites professionalism, working with other entrepreneurs trying to grow their businesses is a great way to network and troubleshoot various aspects of your operations. 

Meeting rooms 

Having access to a physical workspace when you secure a virtual office is excellent. Having access to a meeting room in addition to the physical workspace is even better. 

Regardless of how virtual your operations are, there will undoubtedly come a time when you need to meet with investors, other business owners, clients, or your employees. 

Without a meeting room, you’d be scrambling to find the most cost-effective conference room or biting the bullet and meeting in a public place, neither of which inspire the confidence that a meeting room does. 

Not only do Alliance’s virtual offices give you the chance to reserve a meeting room at any time, but we also provide a variety of different sizes and amenities depending on the number of guests you’re expecting to arrive. 

Other virtual office companies will try and provide entrepreneurs with one or two of the above, often neglecting to mention what business their virtual office shares an address with. 

Alliance Virtual Offices makes a point of providing the best service in the industry while simultaneously providing a virtual office that blows the competition out of the water. 

Using Our Virtual Office Reviews to Continue Moving Forward  

While we occasionally get a bad review, our reviews are around 90 percent positive. 

We understand our services aren’t suitable for everyone. And we work hard to pair the right solutions with your needs. 

We aren’t interested in fooling anyone, which is why we’re honest about the misunderstandings that lead to negative virtual office reviews.  

We’re committed to providing nothing but the best service to our clients. 

Our negative virtual office reviews most regularly deal with confusion about our terms and agreements or our mail forwarding. 

While we recognize the frustration these individuals might feel in the moment, we always go above and beyond when it comes to making our virtual office terms as clear as possible. 

Further Reading 

● The Best Work From Home Tools For Entrepreneurs
● How to Get a Virtual Address For LLC Registration
● Find Meeting Rooms Near Me
● Does Your Business Need a Physical Address?

Alliance’s virtual office reviews are usually very positive. 

With approximately 90 percent positive reviews on TrustPilot, our commitment to excellent service and high-quality virtual offices is proven. 

Despite our best efforts, negative reviews are unavoidable.  

Most of our negative virtual office reviews come from individuals who have misunderstood the terms and agreements or been willfully ignorant of the agreements they made during the registration process. 

We go out of our way to inform customers about the 6-month minimum for our plans as well as the way our mail forwarding works. 

Thankfully, the majority of our reviewers understand what they’re signing up for, and as a result, are more than pleased with the services we provide. 

In addition to our virtual offices, Alliance Virtual Offices provides several remote work solutions for the established entrepreneur. 

From Live Receptionists to Virtual Business Phone Numbers, we’ve got you covered. 

Contact us today to see how we can help your business grow. Experience firsthand why 90% of our virtual office reviews are overwhelmingly positive! 

The post Why Our Virtual Office Reviews Are MOSTLY Positive first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

• What are cost savings? 
• How can cost savings increase profits? 
• How can you benefit from cost savings? 
• Continuing with your strategies for cost savings 

Q: Why is cost savings important? 

A: Saving money is always important when you’re running a business. This is true whether you’re operating a small operation or a multinational enterprise. When you continue to profit with fewer expenses, your profit margins increase. And in the end, that’s what running a business is all about.  

According to a 2022 study, 57% of small businesses in the United States and Canada cut back on spending during the pandemic.  

Even as lockdown measures eased, these businesses continued to streamline operations and keep expenditures at a minimum. This would suggest that entrepreneurs learned valuable cost savings lessons during the pandemic.  

This study also highlighted a shift in priorities for entrepreneurs, with a move from marketing to operations management. We’re also seeing a slight increase in IT and HR spending for small businesses in 2022.  

Perhaps not surprisingly, a considerable portion of respondents increased their budgets for software in 2022 – reflecting a transition towards remote work.  

Small businesses are not firing employees to cut costs, however. In fact, not only are they maintaining their current employees, but they are also offering them new benefits. This suggests that talent is becoming increasingly important in the post-pandemic economy.  

These statistics show that successful businesses approach cost savings in a logical, efficient manner.  

Instead of simply cutting costs wherever possible, it’s important to approach this process strategically. 

But how do you accomplish this? 

What even is cost savings? 

We’re glad you asked… 

What are cost savings? 

At first glance, cost savings might seem like a rather obvious concept – one that does not need an explanation.  

After all, doesn’t cost savings simply refer to the amount of money you’re saving on costs? 

The truth is that “cost savings” in business has a slightly more complex definition.  

The result of cost savings is a “net benefit” after spending reduction. The actual process of cost savings is incredibly varied – ranging from negotiating better contracts to sourcing cheaper materials.  

The goal of cost savings is to increase profits.  

Because of this, cost savings is a multi-faceted process. Instead of simply reducing expenses to the greatest extent possible, businesses strategically plan for the future when they engage in cost savings.  

How will cutting an expense affect your profit margins? Can you afford to stop paying for a utility? What happens when you fire too many employees? These are all questions you should ask yourself as you engage in cost savings.  

The seven types of cost savings 

There are seven types of cost savings, including: 

Substitution 

Substitution involves replacing one thing with another to cut costs. For example, you could switch to a cheaper type of payroll software. Another example would be switching from a physical office to a virtual office.  

Combination 

You can save money by combining many different processes under a single umbrella. The classic example is insurance. Instead of using multiple policies and providers to handle different aspects of your business, you can get an “all-inclusive” plan that covers everything you need for your operations.  

Adaptation 

Adaptation involves transforming your business to compete and remain relevant in the modern era. One of the best ways to adapt is to consider actions taken by other companies within your niche. What are they doing right? How are they saving money? Can you do the same thing? 

Modification 

A few adjustments here and there can go a long way when it comes to cost savings. You might choose to modify your employee benefits program or your shipping fees to negate some of your costs.  

Putting something to another use 

Is there something in your business that could be used for another purpose?  

Perhaps you have an empty room in your office or home that could be dedicated towards something else. Perhaps you could even rent out the empty room on Airbnb.  

If one of your workers has exceptional customer service skills but they work in IT, consider switching them to a more productive role. 

Elimination 

One of the most straightforward examples of cost savings is elimination. This simply involves cutting expenses entirely. For example, you could get rid of your printers – eliminating the annual costs associated with paper and ink. You might also fire employees or get rid of benefits programs entirely.  

Reversing, rearranging, or revising 

One example of reversing is a reverse auction. Rearranging could involve carefully going over your budget and making small adjustments, while revising might be searching for new, updated, and cheaper options. This is essentially a miscellaneous category for everything that doesn’t fall into the other six areas.  

The acronym “SCAMPER” helps you remember these seven different types of cost savings.  

Cost savings vs. cost avoidance 

If you’ve been researching this topic, you might have heard of something called “cost avoidance.” So what’s the difference between cost avoidance and cost savings?  

While they might sound similar, cost avoidance is actually pretty distinct.  

When you avoid costs, you do not necessarily consider the potential effects of these cuts.  

For example, neglecting to replace machine parts in your factory might help you save money, but it probably won’t lead to the best outcome.  

In the end, avoiding costs can affect your profits negatively in the long run – even if it seems to boost profit margins in the short term.  

That being said, cost avoidance is neither inherently good nor bad. It can be beneficial or detrimental to your business depending on whether your strategy is effective.  

Cost savings vs. cost reduction 

Cost savings and cost reduction are also similar concepts, but they’re not exactly the same.  

While cost reduction focuses entirely on dollar amounts, cost savings takes a more holistic approach and examines the “bigger picture.”  

Cutting costs might save you money, but it might also affect other areas of your business – and this can result in new expenses created elsewhere.  

Or it might impact non-financial aspects of your company, such as your reputation among your consumers, or your sustainability score.  

While cost reduction dismisses these secondary knock-on effects, cost savings takes everything into account.  

Cost reduction itself is divided into three categories: 

Cost savings 

Yes – cost savings is technically a type of cost reduction. As previously noted, it represents a more specific, holistic strategy. However, it is still under the general “umbrella term” of cost reduction.  

Avoided costs 

Cost avoidance is another type of cost reduction. As previously noted, this involves deferring or eliminating costs in the hope of boosting profits. Again, whether or not this is beneficial depends on the efficacy of your strategy.  

Opportunity costs 

Most of us have heard of opportunity cost, as this has become something of a buzz phrase today. An opportunity cost is the “road not taken” – the loss of potential gain from choosing one option instead of another.  

A classic example is letting your money sit in a bank account rather than investing it, and the fact that you could have purchased stocks or bonds represents an opportunity cost. The same logic applies to your business.  

Cost savings examples 

So what do cost savings actually look like? 

Here are a few examples: 

• Reduce spending 
• Avoid IT upgrades 
• Eliminate waste 
• Use less physical resources 
• Review insurance 
• Review benefits programs 
• Pursue sustainability 
• Combine functions and events 
• Check banking fees 
• Outsource 
• Invest in new equipment 
• Reduce travel 
• Reduce inventory 
• Discontinue products 
• Negotiate better deals 
• Downsize 
• Relocate 
• Alternative marketing 
• Business model adjustments 

Most of these examples are pretty self-explanatory, but others require a little more discussion. 

Sustainability deserves a special mention because it allows you to kill two birds with one stone. Not only does sustainability lower your operating costs, but it also helps you achieve a better reputation among your customers – potentially increasing demand for your products.  

With this in mind, it’s clear that moves like recycling or eliminating waste can boost your profits in more ways than one.  

Combining functions and events is actually another simple way to save cost. Combining a charity event and a conference can be an excellent way to cut costs, since you won’t have to book a space twice.  

We also need to mention quality. Ironically, you can engage in cost savings by increasing or decreasing the quality of your products/services.  

When you increase quality, you may be able to cut back on marketing costs because your product speaks for itself. High quality naturally cultivates word-of-mouth marketing, making it easier to sell these products.  

On the other hand, you can also cut costs in a more obvious fashion by lowering the quality of your products or services. However, this is a slightly risky move, and it may lead to a variety of issues in the future.  

Sometimes, the best way to engage in cost savings is simply to cut your losses.  

If you’re exploring a new market and struggling to find success, it often makes sense to get out early and focus instead on a more dependable strategy. Expanding your American business into Asia, for example, can be incredibly difficult and costly.  

On that same note, switching up your entire business plan may be the most effective way to save costs, especially if it’s the only viable way to survive.  

How do you show cost savings? 

If you want to take a more analytical approach to cost savings, consider the equation for cost savings percentage.  

First, calculate how much it costs to produce each product. Next, implement your cost savings strategies and recalculate the cost to produce each product.  

Subtract the new number from the old number and divide the difference by the original cost.  

Finally, multiply the result by 100. You will be left with the cost savings percentage – or the amount of money you just saved your company.  

How can cost savings increase profits? 

Cost savings boost profits in a number of important ways.  

The most obvious reason for this is simple. Assuming that your sales remain consistent, reducing costs will always increase profits. 

However, cost savings can increase profits in several more subtle ways, including: 

Productivity 

Cost savings can boost productivity.  

For example, automation or recycling may cut expenses, but they also make your business more productive in the long run by allowing workers to focus on projects that require a higher skill level.  

Improving Your Product 

Other types of cost savings can improve your final product.  

For example, automation may result in fewer mistakes on the assembly line. Improving quality is another example of cost savings that obviously puts a better product in the hands of your customers. This can boost your profits in a less obvious manner.  

Satisfied Customers 

Cost savings can result in better customer satisfaction, which in turn can lead to higher profits. While cutting costs can certainly cause displeasure among your customers, it can also have the opposite effect.  

When you cut costs, you can pass on those savings to your customers in the form of lower prices. This in turn creates higher demand for your products, boosting profits in the process.  

Elimination of Competitors 

Some cost savings strategies can be so effective that they actually cause your competitors to go out of business.  

When you cut costs and offer your goods for lower prices, your rivals might not be able to compete. At the very least, it will keep them on their toes and provide you with a larger share of the market. Once again, this can result in increased profits.  

In addition, the actual process of cost savings essentially forces you to take a closer look at your business’ finances.  

You might be completely unaware of where your business is leaking cash, and this holistic approach allows you to address concerns effectively.  

When you engage in this exercise, you gain a better understanding of your business’ finances and begin to feel more confident about the future.  

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that cost savings is a more effective option compared to cost reduction or cost avoidance because it examines the bigger picture instead of simply the dollar amounts involved.  

How can you benefit from cost savings? 

The best way to benefit from this process is to approach cost savings with an extremely analytical mindset. Keep the bigger picture in mind and analyze your KPIs (key performance indicators) for further insights.  

Once you’ve identified your weak areas, develop effective strategies to reduce costs – without causing negative consequences in the future.  

With that being said, there are a few cost savings strategies that almost always produce results, regardless of the unique characteristics of your business.  

First, you could simply relocate and enjoy the tax benefits offered by other states. 

The interesting thing about this strategy is that you don’t need to physically relocate your business in order to take advantage of these tax benefits.  

With a virtual address, you can simply re-register your business in a different state while maintaining operations in your home state.  

Check out virtual address providers like Alliance Virtual Offices, and you’ll see how easy it is to implement this strategy. You can pick any address you like – from New York and Los Angeles to Hawaii and Alaska.   

Another excellent option is to switch from a physical office to a virtual office. This ties in with the strategy above, and it allows you to cut costs associated with utilities, office rent, and many others.  

Working remotely is more viable today than ever before, and you can coordinate your entire team while working from home without any real impact on your profit margins.  

Again, you can find all the information you need about virtual offices via Alliance Virtual Offices.  

Virtual offices also come with a host of other benefits, including mail forwarding and flexible workspaces whenever you need them. 

This allows you to keep your home environment separate from your work environment and promote a degree of privacy and security. Your business mail will go straight to your virtual office address, and you can have it forwarded or pick it up at your convenience.  

If you ever need to hold a team meeting or confer with investors, Alliance Virtual Offices gives you access to conference rooms and office spaces that exude a professional, polished atmosphere.  

Another effective strategy is to use Alliance Virtual Offices’ Live Receptionist service.  

Cutting unnecessary employees is one of the most obvious ways to engage in cost savings. Employee wages represent some of the biggest expenses for most businesses, and you can replace many of these employees with automation, freelancers, and other solutions.  

For example, Alliance Virtual Offices’ Live Receptionist service allows you to hire a dedicated customer service professional for just a few dollars a month.  

Your new Live Receptionist will pick up your business calls and provide customers with an excellent first impression. They can take messages, answer basic questions, and forward calls when necessary.  

Continuing with your strategies for cost savings 

At the end of the day, the only person who knows the best cost savings strategies for your business is you. 

The process of cost savings should be tailored to meet the needs of each specific business, and it requires research and planning for best results.  

Perhaps your business will benefit most from trying new software. Maybe the best solution is to switch to a virtual office and work remotely.  

Whatever the case may be, cost savings can be highly beneficial – not only boosting profit margins but also improving the general stability of your business.  

And remember: 

This process never truly ends.  

The best entrepreneurs are constantly searching for ways to engage in effective cost savings. If you do the same, you’ll outcompete your rivals and strive for continuously higher degrees of success.  

The fact that you’re reading this article means you’re already off to a great start.  

The only thing left to do is take action and start engaging in effective cost savings today.  

Further Reading 

• Reducing operating expenses in your business

The post Small Business Cost Savings: A Simple Way to Grow Your Income first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

Q: Why would a real estate agent working for an established agency leave to pursue a business as an independent real estate agent?

A: Many real estate agents eventually leave real estate agencies or firms to become independent real estate agents for more freedom, flexibility, and the opportunity to create their own businesses as independent real estate solopreneurs. Technology and a digital-first, flexible workplace economy are helping independent real estate contractors succeed.

• Booming Real Estate Market Attracts Real Estate Agents
• Property Ownership and the American Dream
• The Evolving Market and Independent Real Estate Agents

Owning a piece of property or home has been a part of the American dream ever since Europeans and other brave individuals set sail to the new world in search of new opportunities.

It’s no wonder why so many graduates and career changers find real estate a diverse and challenging career space to enter. 

According to The New York Times, 

“in 2021, there were a record number of real estate agents in the United States, according to the National Association of Realtors. More than 156,000 people joined their ranks in 2021 and 2020 combined — nearly 60 percent more than did in the two years prior.”

While not all of these new real estate agents will succeed, those that do prove themselves will likely find themselves working for a real estate franchise or brokerage. Others will decide to pursue a career as independent real estate agents.

While real estate laws and regulations vary widely across the world, one thing is for certain: as long as there is a property for sale on the open market, there will be customers interested in purchasing it.

The price they are willing to pay for it, however, often remains uncertain.

Real estate prices fluctuate mysteriously, often baffling experts. While real estate and property values adhere to many standard economic laws like supply and demand, other factors can contribute to the price. 

Additionally, what might appear to be a relatively simple business transaction can become a complex dance involving multiple interests. 

Traditionally, real estate agencies, realtors, brokers, bankers, lawyers, mortgage writers, property inspectors, insurers, and others, like hungry sharks smelling blood in the water, circle the property owner and potential real estate buyers, all hoping for a bite of a profitable real estate sale.

In the U.S., most real estate agents work for larger real estate companies and agencies that take a cut of the agent’s commissions.

Real estate agents forfeit a portion of their profits from facilitating property sales in exchange for the higher visibility, brand recognition, and technology that the real estate agencies have traditionally provided them.

Recently, this trend is changing. Many real estate agents are leaving traditional property franchises and real estate brokers to pursue careers as independent real estate agents.

Read More: Solo Real Estate Agent | How to Set Up Yourself for Success

But why?

• Freedom
• Flexibility
• Specialization

And the above are just to name a few. Find out more below.

First, a little background on property rights and the real estate market – particularly in the U.S. 

Property Ownership as Cornerstone of the American Dream

Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith wrote about the perils and benefits of property ownership in his famous book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published a few months before America’s founding in 1776.

“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce. ”

Adam Smith’s opus is loathed by some and loved by others, but its obstinate title has since been abbreviated and is more widely known as, simply, The Wealth of Nations.

The pursuit of property ownership of one kind or another has been a vital component of the American dream (or myth?) ever since. 

Along with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, America’s ‘founding fathers’ inscribed the right to property in America’s Constitution and The Declaration of Independence. 

These ‘rights’ have been interpreted in various ways through the cloudy lens of history. 

The British enlightenment philosopher John Locke and the French philosophy of  Rosseau, among many other white European thinkers, are considered by history buffs to be the largest influence on the ideas that paved the way for the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution.

It’s hard to understand how these rights were “unalienable” when the government promoting them allowed the slavery of millions of Africans kidnapped from their homelands and shipped over from Africa. 

Additionally, “the property” was seized from native tribes and those indigenous people living on the continent when the first freedom-seeking Europeans sailed to North America.

Perhaps that is why Rosseau, whose philosophy and book The Social Contract heavily influenced early American ideas about government, offered this caveat: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

The Evolving Market and Independent Real Estate Agents

As a red hot real estate market scorches the United States like climate change is scorching much of the planet, the demand for real estate professionals is growing.

Thousands of real estate agents are leaving relatively safe and successful careers at real estate firms and property franchises where they’ve worked for years.

While the real estate brokerage or franchise offers agents, some perks, technology, and changing views on the nature of work are challenging the standard real estate broker and agent relationship.

Independent real estate agents who leave the perceived safety of the franchise face a lot of competition, and they must handle the complexities of real estate sales on their own.

Some work with a spouse or partner who is a broker.

The internet has made it possible for people in every industry to operate on their own. 

They can connect with new clients through digital marketing and can operate from their homes, helping them build their businesses without massive overhead.

Other independent real estate agents contract out some of the legal and business transactions that are out of their scope. 

They are able to find success running a full or part-time real estate business from their own home and utilize a virtual office.

Other real estate professionals enjoy the flexibility and camaraderie that comes with a flexible workspace or coworking space. 

Read More: Flexible Coworking Space that Actually Fits Your Budget

Since they are no longer paying out a sizable percentage of their real estate commissions to a real estate franchise or brokerage, independent agents can allocate savings to growing their own independent real estate business.

During the pandemic, with half the country working from home, this wasn’t uncommon. 

Now, as many traditional workers return to the office, independent real estate agents may choose to work from home and use a virtual office address or virtual office plan.

Many join professional associations and use online networking tools specifically for real estate.

The Downside to Going Solo as a Real Estate Agent

One of the biggest challenges of going solo is surrendering the certainty that comes with an agency. 

You lose the guarantee that you’ll make money, which can be turbulent and stressful.

You also have to learn to run all elements of your business. 

You lose the support of your administration, leaving you to handle your phones, your finances, your marketing, and every other element of running your business.

How to Succeed as an Independent Real Estate Agent

There are clearly pros and cons of becoming a solo or independent real estate agency.

With the Great Resignation, people are realizing they hold power to demand better pay or take their careers into their own hands. 

This has led to increased interest in going independent as a real estate agent.

Real estate professionals who want to break free from property brokerages and real estate franchises must do their due diligence first.

Some choose to pursue real estate part-time as solo agents. 

For example, real estate agents who retire but maintain their licensure, like other retired professionals, may desire to work on their own post-retirement. 

Read More: Thinking About Starting a Business After Retirement?

They may not desire the restraints and lack of flexibility that real estate franchises require. 

Becoming an independent real estate agent can provide a multitude of benefits:

• Flexibility
  • You can work when and where you want, as long as you adhere to specific state regulations. One of the biggest benefits of going solo is you can set your own schedule. You’re free to work as much or as little as you want, meaning you can directly manage your work-life balance.

• Autonomy
  • You can set up your business how you want and work the way that works best for you. You will not have a director telling you how to do your work or how to run your career.

• Specialization
  • You can focus on areas of the real estate market that interest you most. You can choose what skills you excel at and pursue those areas instead of the franchise dictating where and how you work.
  • You’re able to focus on the areas of real estate that most interest you. You take on the clients you want to and can pivot in your career any time you feel like it. You gain flexibility and freedom with your career.

• Entrepreneurial Freedom
  • Another benefit of being independent is you are in control of your income. You can set your rates and work as much as you’d like, allowing you to get paid what you’re worth.

In fact, many industry experts suggest treating your independent real estate career as a business instead of a job. 

Since you will be working independently of a franchise that can provide direction, leads, and messaging, solo real estate agents should be agile and business-minded professionals.

Forbes Councils Member Dave Panozzo writes:

“Believe me, there are many solo agents who are very successful and should be commended for the hell of a job that they do. That being said, the average solo agent may be faced with circumstances in the coming year unless they treat being a real estate agent like a business, instead of like a career. In fact, before I got my real estate license and built my real estate team from scratch, my wife had been a solo agent for 14 years. “

Should You Become an Independent Real Estate Agent?

It’s no secret that real estate can be a competitive and even cutthroat business.

Those who are considering going into a real estate career should do their research. 

Real estate will always entice entrepreneurial personality types because of the opportunities and the ability to build your own business.

Many independent real estate agents gain experience working for a franchise and then branch off on their own to form their own brand and real estate agency.

Further Reading

• Should You Start as an Independent Real Estate Agent or Join a Team?
• Franchises vs. Independents
• Real Estate Agent vs. Broker: What’s the Difference

The internet and the great resignation have empowered professionals of all backgrounds to go into business for themselves. 

While going independent as a real estate agent can be stressful, it also opens up the potential to make more money and take charge of your career. 

If you’ve been considering going independent, now is a great time to do so.

Today, there are fewer barriers to starting your own business. A virtual office address means you do not need to sign an expensive lease to have a professional address or workspace.

A professional business address in a commercial part of town can help you gain the visibility and brand recognition needed to grow and market your independent real estate agent services.

Investing in a website, a bit of digital marketing, and a virtual office plan will streamline the process and get your business going quickly. 

Make sure you have the proper LLC and purchase a virtual office plan that helps set you up for success.

As your business grows, Alliance Virtual Offices is there to provide you with access to live virtual receptionists, meeting rooms, a virtual phone number, and a professional business address as you scale up your business.

The post Independent Real Estate Agents are Crushing it | Here’s How They Can Close More Deals – Without an Office first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.

Q: What is Alliance Virtual Offices’ Platinum Plus plan and what does it offer?

A: Alliance Virtual Offices Platinum Plus plan offers more than just a virtual office address for your business; the plan can provide a savings of up to 70 percent on meeting room rental.

The future of work is flexible, and virtual offices are becoming a big part of it.

Even before 2020 reared its ugly head, there was a growing movement toward flexible work, remote collaboration, and cost efficiency.

Now, more entrepreneurs than ever before recognize the benefits of flexible work and how it can help their business save money and grow.

So, it’s no surprise that virtual office plans are becoming a key component in our future of work.

What is a Virtual Office?

A virtual office is a combination of both physical and virtual services. It provides a business address at an office building, mail processing, on-site meeting rooms, receptionist support, and more.

Some virtual office plans, such as Alliance’s Platinum Plus plan, provide inclusive access to meeting rooms and office space every month.

The address serves a number of important business requirements. Opening a bank account, registering your business, business licensing, and of course, receiving mail.

If you’re wondering, can I register an LLC with a virtual office?

Yes, you can do that too — so long as the virtual office provides a recognized business address, which all of Alliance’s virtual offices do. Our guide on using a virtual office address for LLC registration explains how to do it.

Meanwhile, you can get your work done from anywhere. From home, from a coworking space, or even from a minivan.

Good news is, whenever you need to work in a more professional environment, or meet with clients, virtual offices from Alliance provide a great selection of on-site meeting rooms and workspaces.

Alliance’s Platinum Plus plans make collaboration even easier by offering inclusive meeting room usage.

What’s more, they offer considerable cost savings on meeting room rental.

In this guide, we’ll explain how Platinum Plus works, how it helps reduce the cost of meeting room rental, and how virtual offices make flexible work even easier.

What is the Platinum Plus Plan?

Here’s a quick overview of what’s included in a standard virtual office plan and a Platinum Plus plan.

What are the features of a virtual office?

• Recognized business address in the city of your choice.
• Onsite mail processing and storage.
• Optional daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly mail forwarding (additional fee).
• Front lobby receptionist to greet visitors.
• Easy access to meeting rooms and office space (hourly fee).

With Platinum Plus you get the same features, plus:

• Monthly meeting room and private office usage (up to 16 hours per month).

Why is this important?

More and more people and teams are working remotely, and this looks set to continue in the future.

But we still need to collaborate in-person, perhaps now more than ever. So there’s a distinct need for remote workers to gain easy-to-access meeting space on a flexible, as-needed basis.

That’s why Alliance offers Platinum Plus.

With inclusive access to meeting rooms, it’s quick and easy to book a meeting space — plus it’s already paid upfront, which makes billing easy to manage.

How Does Platinum Plus Work?

With a Platinum Plus Virtual Office, you get exactly the same as a standard Virtual Office plan with the added benefit of inclusive meeting room access.

In the majority of locations, you get 16 hours of meeting room usage every month.

This is slightly different in some locations. In New York City you get 4 hours of meeting room time per month, and in London and Paris it’s 8 hours.

It’s worth noting that your inclusive access also applies to private office space.

After all, working from home can be distracting.

If you have children home from school, noisy pets, or sociable neighbors, it can be incredibly challenging to focus on complex tasks.

That’s why it pays to have a fully equipped office at your disposal.

It’s your choice whether you use your monthly allowance for meeting rooms, office space, or a mix of both.

In the same way as booking a meeting space, simply call or chat with our team to reserve your space through your Platinum Plus agreement.

Virtual Office Plans: Cost Comparison

Here comes the money question. With Platinum Plus, is a virtual office worth it?

The value all comes down to meeting room usage. We’ve found that on average, Platinum Plus provides a saving of 60-70% on meeting room rental, sometimes more.

Here’s a quick cost comparison.

As an example, this virtual office at Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA, offers:

• Standard plan at $99 per month
• Platinum Plus plan at $199 per month (including 16 hours of meeting room rental)

That’s an extra $100 per month for 16 hours of meeting room usage.

Let’s compare the cost of meeting room rental with, and without, Platinum Plus.

Divide $100 (the cost of upgrading to Platinum Plus) by 16 (the number of inclusive meeting room hours) to calculate the hourly meeting room rate with Platinum Plus.

Then compare this rate with the standard hourly meeting room rate for non-Platinum Plus users.

With Platinum Plus, the meeting room rate equates to $6.25 per hour.

Without Platinum Plus, the meeting room starting rate is $45 per hour. For the same 16 hours, you would pay $720 in meeting room rental.

That means by paying $100 to upgrade to Platinum Plus, you will save $620 in meeting room rental.

That’s a pretty convincing saving.

How Does Platinum Plus Benefit Small Business Owners?

We’ve already discussed the cost savings of inclusive meeting room usage with Platinum Plus, but why do you need meeting rooms anyway?

After all, following the onset of the pandemic, the world coped remarkably well without face-to-face meetings.

Aside from the fact that we’ve all grown tired of remote video calls, there are plenty of reasons why we humans need to get together and meet in-person.

• Build relationships. Whether with your team or with clients, face-to-face communication is an authentic way to build trust and relationships. Humans are social creatures, and spending time in-person is our natural way of building connections.
• Clear communication. It’s easy for messages to get mixed when speaking over the phone or on a video call, especially when you’re dealing with spotty WiFi. When you’re meeting in-person, you have the advantage of facial expressions and body language cues to help convey meaning and gain full understanding.
• Make decisions. Making informed decisions requires lots of different perspectives. The best way to gather the information you need is to get everyone in a room together. That way, conversation can flow more freely, opinions can be heard with clarity, and you can reach the right decision, faster.
• Gain inspiration. There’s nothing quite like a group brainstorming session to get the creative juices flowing. Whether you need to develop a new marketing campaign, come up with new content ideas, or take your sales strategy to the next level, a working meeting with your team will help you get there.
• Set the right tone. Even if you work from home most of the time, your clients will expect to meet you in a more professional environment. A meeting room will help set the right impression and demonstrate that you’re a forward-thinking entrepreneur with a credible, growth-oriented business.

Now that we’ve covered the main benefits of physical meeting rooms, let’s consider some other important features of Platinum Plus.

A big one is the business address.

Every one of Alliance’s virtual office plans includes a commercially recognized address.

That’s the really important part, as it enables you to register your business to a recognized office address and separate your business from your home.

It also creates a more professional exterior, helping you to build business credibility while marketing your business in a specific location.

It’s useful for other reasons too.

Namely, mail. You can have an unlimited number of letters sent to your virtual office address, which prevents your home from becoming inundated with mail.

Many businesses start out by using the owner’s home address, but this soon becomes unviable. This can be for many reasons, including:

• Credibility. Using a home address for business doesn’t convey the same professionalism or credibility as an office address.
• Separating work from home. Most home-based entrepreneurs feel uncomfortable publishing their home address on public business records, particularly if they have family at home.
• Financial credit. When applying for financing, it helps to have a commercial address attached to your business. Mainly, this is because it demonstrates the credibility of your business — but also because many banks simply don’t accept a home address.
• Online information is ‘sticky’. Once you publish your home as your business address, that information has a habit of sticking around. If you don’t want your business to be associated with your home in the future, it pays to use a commercial address sooner rather than later.

By choosing a business address Virtual Office plan, entrepreneurs can alleviate many of these challenges.

In particular, the address can be used for:

• Registering a business entity.
• Setting up an LLC.
• Opening a bank account.
• Applying for business licenses.
• Applying for financial credit.
• Marketing — including ‘contact’ details on a website, email footer, business cards, letterheads.
• To receive mail and unlimited letters.

If you’re wondering: Should I get a virtual office?

Virtual offices are a fast and cost-effective way to gain credibility in your target market. You’ll get all the key ingredients you need to build a local presence, but without the high cost, risk, and commitment of full-time office space.

We hope this guide has helped you to understand whether a virtual office, and specifically a virtual office plan with inclusive meeting room access, will suit your business needs.

After all, the more flexible your workplace strategy, the more money you’ll save and the easier your business can adapt to market changes, and grow.

What Next?

Want to explore the benefits of Platinum Plus?

It’s easy to get started. To search for a business address online, head to www.alliancevirtualoffices.com and type your city into the search bar.

Click on a virtual office listing and you’ll see the plans available.

Alliance offers two plans: Platinum (standard) and Platinum Plus, as shown in this Houston example below:

As you can see in this example, you have the option to add a live receptionist service to every plan, too.

Find out more about Alliance’s flexible live receptionist and appointment scheduling service here.

Can’t see a Platinum Plus option on your virtual office listing? That means it’s not currently available at your chosen location. Speak to our team and we’ll work with you to find a great alternative.

If you have any questions, simply chat online with our team or contact us by phone or email.

Conclusion

When it comes to deciding between virtual office plans, you’ll have your own set of criteria and requirements.

If access to meeting rooms or private office space is a priority for you, then we recommend a Platinum Plus plan.

Whether you need a business address for LLC, or a flexible meeting location, it’s a cost effective way to gain easy, flexible access to meeting rooms and office space up to 16 hours every month, ensuring you can meet with clients or brainstorm with your team whenever you need to.

In addition, your business gains instant credibility with a commercially recognized address, an efficient mail processing service, and support from professional on-site staff.
Get started today by searching online at www.alliancevirtualoffices.com or chat with our team to learn more about the advantages of Platinum Plus.

Further Reading

• What’s Included in the Platinum Plus Plan?
• Platinum Plus Cost Comparison: How to Save 60-70%
• 9 Specific Benefits for Small Business Owners

The post This Virtual Office Plan is More Than Just a Business Address first appeared on Alliance Virtual Offices.