We have often talked about the value of having a virtual office, but we have also discussed the virtues of having a cloud-based office too. Some recent events brought the two topics together and we knew we had to share them with our followers. Some are funny and others are not.
A recent virtual office client told us why he decided to become a client with us – for security reasons. He had been running his online product sales business from his home and doing quite well at it, until a customer showed up at his door looking to make a direct purchase. He had put his home address as the return address on his packages, but did not think anyone would show up at his home. That is when he decided that he needed a real business address that was not his home address.
Working from home, a coffee shop, at the cottage or wherever you want is fine for an entrepreneur or small business owner who does not need a physical office space. But how do your clients know where to find you and contact you? Utilizing a virtual office through an office business centre gives a small business owner a professional business address and a receptionist who can transfer your calls to wherever you are. Your clients do not need to know that you are at home, at the cottage or even working at a local coffee shop.
Besides utilizing a virtual office provider so that you can work remotely, you also have to consider how you access your day-to-day files. We all have those spread sheets, word files and photos that we are always needing to access on a daily basis. So how do you access them when you are not in front of your primary computer? Many entrepreneurs are finding that cloud officing is the best way to store and utilize files from any computer, tablet or even a smartphone. It is also and ideal strategy to centralize files.
Office360, Google Docs and DropBox are some of the top places that small business owners are storing their daily accessed files. The great part about Office360 and Google Docs is that they not only let you store your files, they also let you edit or update your files remotely on their storage sites. It does this by using a web interface that does not require you to download the file onto whatever device you are using. You just login and you can work on them.
One of our associates Terry recently was reminded how important cloud officing was when he had a computer hardware failure on his primary computer. Because Terry uses Office360, his day-to-day files where still accessible to him on his cloud storage. He was not only able to access his important files, he was able to edit and update his files while he was waiting to have his main computer fixed.
As an office space and virtual office provider, we are often asked why we do not offer cloud office services. The simple answer it that we like to leave that to the experts who provide those services. We are experts at providing support for companies who need office space, virtual office and VoIP solutions. To expand to offering cloud storage would take valuable time away from providing top quality office solutions to our customers.
As an entrepreneur or small business owner on the go, you need to utilize the services of a virtual-office provider to centralize your files, as well as a cloud office solution to give you access to all your important files wherever you are – and from whatever computer or device you are using to access those files.
