Virtual Office

[dezina]

I work from home and my design business is setup as a virtual office. My business has been successfully running for a couple years now but I still have issues dealing with new clients...

My virtual office model seems to work well with referrals, but there is hesitation from potential clients that have no knowledge of my firm etc. I believe this is due to not having a shop front.
 
I would be very interested to know how designers sell the idea of the virtual office to clients when they request to ‘come in and chat'. I find that if I mention ' I work from home and don't see clients at my studio', they instantly *** I am not an accomplished designer. I have tried to say that I work online as a virtual office but this always needs further explanation!...so I find myself explaining that I work from home!

I would love to hear some suggestions on what to say?

[bradmiller]

We're not a virtual office, but we are small. My office is connected to my home.

I tell clients that it's nice for me because I don't have to bill clients to cover the costs of have a huge staff that may have down time. I also hint that I can work nights if needed. Tell them that there's no sense in our business to have a large overhead.

In the end, there are clients that will never work with a virtual firm. I've lost plenty of work because I don't charge enough.

[dezina]

Thanks Brad, I appreciate your feedback and yes I guess it is just part of a home office environment that you do lose some clients by simply not charging enough!

[cnate2010]

I get it my work done through virtual office.  It works pretty well.

For designers, there are many software applications available to show your design works remotely.  Even you can share the screen and get the work done fast.

My VA and designers are located in other countries and have been working extremely well for the last 5 years.

I can offer you more tips how to scale your virtual office.  Since, most of the companies are switching to cloud computing, virtual office gains more popular in the coming years.

Nathanson

[Aibrean]

Most of my clients aren't even in my state so it's a mute point I actually have a separate door from the outside to my current home office and we are going to eventually relocate it to another part of the house also with a door to the outside.

[Blenderman]

I am in the same situation. I am just honest and tell them I work from a home office. I also tell them that I like meet at a clients office so I can see their business first hand and get a feel for what they do.

If you are going to work from home and it is a house not apt/condo, then it would be ideal to have a completely separate area for the business, with it's own entrance. In my house, we closed up the garage so it's just like another room in the house. It has it's own entrance, bathroom, foyer (for a waiting room) and is closed off from the home. Now I have not yet had a client over yet, because I don't like the idea of a client knowing where my personal home is. Wouldn't enjoy a client "popping in" early in the morning when I'm in my sweats before I start work for the day.

A good option for you might be one of those shared offices. You pay a small fee for so many hours of office space a month. You can just use it for meetings. It's usually pretty affordable. Most of them have conference rooms that you can use too.

[arenacreative]

You can always skype it up or some other type of face to face video conferencing, just make sure you don't have a pile of laundry sitting on the couch in the background

[KristaJackson]

A virtual office should not necessarily be a room in the house of a person, however. In most cases, a person working in a virtual office is set up through his workplace. All material belongs to the home office and must be returned upon termination from that company.

[sarenarichard]

Best suggestion is that you expand your network by hiring, this will reduce work load and help your clients in getting quick response.

[GraphicDesignBoss]

Dezina, I would be upfront about where you work from.

For most clients it's not really a big problem, what is important is the quality of work, not where you work.

It's about setting expectations beforehand and how you position yourself.

For example you can say "I want a good work life balance and so I choose to work at home" or "For me the quality of my work is more important rather than where I work" Or you could go for the financial angle "I'd rather be my own landlord at this stage of my business"