As a basic rule it is a good idea to give your virtual business a physical business address. You can do this by getting a post box address from a specialist business. Well known examples are Regus, or Wework, but you may also find offerings in local business centres, so ask around.
It is not usually a good idea to use your home address for both impression and security reasons. Just having a post office Royal Mail PO box address will usually not work as it is too ambiguous - it usually means you are either very small or huge.
Giving the virtual business the anchor of a physical address immediately establishes credibility that you can then build upon.
If you have a sales/delivery model that can guarantee growth, the next thing to be concerned about is how you house the operations that make the sales / delivery possible.
The traditional story starts with a converted garage or back bedroom, moving to a small rented facility then progressing to a larger rented facility before building the purpose built office, factory or warehouse.
The modern 21st century traditional story often starts with a hot desk or someone working out of a coffee shop of some kind before moving to the small rented office and so on.
The 21st century story hints at the possibilities that modern communication technology provides. Our ability to connect to each other through both fixed line internet connections and wireless options has increased at a breathtaking rate over the last 20 years. If we add to that a plethora of online project management services and social media then the communication possibilities become literally endless.
This means that, when considering business growth, we do not need to be constrained by facilities, because close communication and co-operation is now usually not dependent on physical proximity. The main constraint is the service model - how the service will actually be delivered.
So we may start out with a hot desk or in a back bedroom, but this setup could take the business a great deal further than it could in the past. The next step into a small rented office, again, may take the business capacity much, much further.
This virtualisation element to a growing business can significantly cut costs, increase profitability and make the path to growth so much easier.
The trick is to make the business look established from the outset. So, even if you are based in a back bedroom, make use of a local virtual office solution as offered by Regus to get a professional business and mail drop location. As an added benefit, virtual offices often come with discounted room hire, so you can receive customers, suppliers or new employees in a professional environment.
An important benefit when adding personnel is that instead of asking the question 'what is the cost of a new desk and where are we going to put it?', the question is more 'where can they work and do we need to provide any additional equipment?'.
For example virtual telephone systems (known as hosted or virtual PBX) could mean you could appoint a receptionist / administrator who could work at home. The receiving and re-directing of calls can all be handled remotely - they just need a reliable internet connection with a minimum speed.
Equally the person on the other end of the redirected line could be at home or at a service delivery site and take the call as if they are in the office. The person calling in may be none the wiser, but in fact may be reassured by the flexibility of the business and the ease of communication if they know the truth. You win either way.
This system can work using internet lines, conventional landlines , mobile connections or over 4G depending upon the connectivity you have available to you.
Project communications can take place over Zoom or Skype, or Slack or Trello or via a simple TTMG Intel conferencing setup - whatever makes the most sense in the situation at the time.
The key point is the lack of a need to be physically together and more importantly no need for costly additional hired, or permanent meeting facilities.
This approach massively increases the flexibility of the business and makes responding to increased sales demand easier. This in turn speeds up the growth path and allows you to add value to the business at a much faster rate.
For entrepreneurs operating on a 3 to 5 year project cycle, the speed of growth and adding value to the business is critical.
