5 Tips for Setting up a Virtual Office for Under $300

In this article I’m going to show you how to give your Internet business the look of a big professional company for under $300.

As well as looking more professional, my tips are going to protect your privacy and still allow you to be in touch with your clients and website visitors.

There are really five things you need, or five channels of communication to open up and protect.

1. Email, 2. Physical Address, 3. Fax Capabilities, 4. Phone Number & 5. Office Space.

Email, address and phone are required when you register a domain name, for example. And the fax is optional but still used for a lot of other small business tasks. Office space may or may not be needed depending on your business.

1. Email

Get your own domain name and set up a professional email address. Be creative with these email addresses, don’t forget they can be great marketing tools:

• Top10Results@YourSEOcompany.com
• WealthyYou@BusinessCoach.com
• EasyBlogging@RealBlogVideos.com

For your domain names, it is silly easy, go to Hotmail or Gmail and get one. So we’ll assume you can handle this aspect. In short grab an email from these providers and forward it to your main email address. That way if you get too much spam, you can kill it off and get a new one.

2. Physical Address

Probably the most risky aspect of being online is to have to give out your physical address. A possible worst case scenario would be something like this…

I write something on my blog and some crazy takes it personally and shows up at my house and goes postal on me and my family. You’d be amazed at how many website owners don’t know that I can find out their address and phone number in about 20 seconds.

Yes, you can get privacy protection on your domain names, but it gets expensive if you have a lot of domains and I have received some cool correspondence by placing my address on my websites (freebies like magazine subscriptions and invites to events come to mind) so I prefer to keep this channel open.

Getting a post office box is the only option that takes care of the problem, but post office boxes are, well, post office boxes, for a small business they look unprofessional and there are some places that won’t send correspondence to a post office box.

The solution: The UPS Store!

There are probably other places that offer this service too, but up the street from me, my UPS Store rents me a postal box for about $120 a year and here’s the address that they give me:

Jigsaw Online Media Inc.
Suite 240, 10654 82 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6E 2A7

I’ve had local people say they would meet me at my “office”

I had to tell them it would probably be a bit too crowded in a 4x4x12″ box, but I was impressed that they actually thought I had a real office.

The other major advantage is that there is an attendant there during regular office hours. This means if I am expecting a parcel, they will be there to receive it. Have you ever waited around all day for a delivery that was promised at 9am and came at 3:30p? No more!

Now I can actually promote my address online and still be safely anonymous a few blocks away.

3. Faxing

A hugely out dated tool that is unfortunately still used quite a bit. Unless you’re an antique collector I don’t recommend buying one of this machines, but you will likely need one occasionally in your small business.

Luckily, and most people don’t realize it, Windows XP has a built in fax machine application. Used in combination with the scanner that is built into most printers these days and you have everything that you need for a high end fax machine. This article outlines exactly how I use it to send and receive faxes easily without having a fax machine from MS Word.

I use XP, but Windows Vista also has fax and scan capabilities.

4. Phone Number

Now do I want Joe “hates my latest blog post” calling me at 3am to tell me about it? No thanks!

Do I want Joe “deep pockets” to call and offer me big cash for my hidden gem affiliate site? Yes please!

The answer: SkypeIn

With SkypeIn I was able to purchase a dedicated land line phone number for $38 (a year.) They are available in a huge number of locales, unfortunately Canada wasn’t one of them, so I chose Mountain View California, that way when Mr. Google calls with his take over offer they can make a local call.

SkypeIn also allows me to be really flexible. I can log in through the regular Skype application and set incoming calls to be forwarded to my cell if I’m expecting an important call, or just let them go to voice mail. Skype will then put up a little flag to let me know that I’ve got a message. I click a button on my screen to listen to any messages.

Here’s my number: 650.206.2516 …don’t be a stranger!

If you are running some kind of service and want to take it to the next level, you can grab low cost toll free numbers at places like Tollfreemax and for a low monthly cost and further enhance your professional image. For certain products and services offering a toll-free number could dramatically increase sales.

5. The Next Level

If you want to take it up a level from here, you can get entire virtual offices, complete with receptionist, book as you need it boardrooms and temporary, rent it by the hour, office space that looks like you own the whole floor, from companies like Regus.

That’s it, my tips for creating a high end company image for your online business for about $300 bucks a year. Do you have any other to add to my list? Or better ways of doing what I’m trying to accomplish?

This post was written by Jon Symons, see my short bio. Or use the contact page to get in touch.