Nowadays there is an alternative to having an office in every major country, or state costing $100K a year as a minimum. Instead, for $1000 a year you can have a virtual office costing in any country you choose. So, for the a tenth of the investment cost in any one country, you can have a virtual office in ten countries. You can have a virtual office in every one of your major markets for less than the price of a single automobile. Even within the USA the advantages to be gained by having a virtual office in every major city are enormous.
A virtual office package can include phone answering, signing for mail, a prestigious local postal address (with mail forwarding), cell phone forwarding, fax to email services and more. The only way to have a presence in eg UK or Canada used to be to open expensive office premises in London, Ottawa or another major city. The premises required staff, whose wages needed to be paid. Rent, fuel and local taxes all added to the exorbitant cost of maintaining a presence in a country.
Now a virtual office gives you all the advantages of having a local presence, at only a tiny fraction of the cost. These advantages include a better response to advertising campaigns, local knowledge, local accents answering the phone and avoiding misunderstandings through different English language use in different countries.
You can also find a Virtual Assistant (VA) who is trained to respond to phone calls as though employed in your local office. This person can maintain your diary, answer emails and post, as though you were answering it yourself. This represents another massive saving on employing a Personal Assistant in every country. Your VA answers the phone in a local accent, and gives you a really credible local presence that will help you increase your local sales.
Virtual Offices and Virtual Assistants make it possible for ANY business to maintain a presence in every single country or state they market to. |
