An office with no physical location, that’s a virtual office. The new way of working is reinvented and reinvented at a rapid pace. Before the corona crisis, a virtual office already had significant benefits for entrepreneurs and employers, after it was forced to evaluate and adapt its workplace to the new standard, these benefits have become even more important.
A virtual business address therefore has several advantages. In this piece we discuss six:
- A virtual office is good for your image
- With a virtual office you radiate more professionalism
- A virtual office as a growth strategy
- A virtual office for your convenience
- A virtual office for privacy
- For entrepreneurs from abroad – expanding to The Netherlands with a virtual office
A virtual office is good for your image
Image is important. We can turn around, but then we’d cover you with the cloak of love. Your appearance can have far-reaching consequences for the success of your company.
Image is the image that others have of you, professionality is the extent to which you can fulfill the promise of the image you have sketched.
With an address in a prominent location, your image is more professional and others are more likely to think that the professionalism of the appearance will also apply to the professionalism of the work you provide. There is even a psychological term for this: the ‘Halo effect’. This is people’s tendency to rate others positively in general based on a single positive trait.
This is nothing new and many other large companies are all too concerned about this. Just think of the flagship models on phones. Each large telephone brand has one very good (and therefore also very expensive) model, which suddenly makes the other, more limited versions of that brand a lot more attractive. This is usually an unconscious process. You won’t realize it or you won’t realize it. But it does affect your feeling towards the cheaper phones: ‘look how much that thing can do and the price is not so bad.’
Such an automatic positive appearance does add something to how a potential customer sees you.
With a virtual office you radiate more professionalism
In addition to the fact that a postal address in a good location can improve your image, with a virtual office you also have the opportunity to fulfill that promise.
When a potential new customer doesn’t see you, it’s when you spend hours to finish that pitch/assignment. Whether you’re sitting in neat clothes in a neat office, or in a house at the kitchen table, is anything to go by.
When a customer does see you it is normally during a meeting. How you receive a customer is therefore important. With a virtual office you have the possibility to use the real office for this type of purpose. And you can bet that your still potential customer will get a different impression of your company and your qualities. What would this impression be when the appointment is at your home, or in a coffee shop around the corner, in relation to an impressive meeting room?
A virtual office as a growth strategy – for small businesses and freelancers
If you have international ambitions as a company or freelancer, but you do not operate from a large city in The Netherlands, a location address such as Amsterdam or Rotterdam can provide a lot of recognition. They are cities with worldviews. If you are asked where you are located and you can answer with Amsterdam or Rotterdam, the answer will be ‘Oh yes’, as opposed to ‘Huh where?’ if your answer is Purmerend.
Of course, this strategy also works locally.
Suppose you have chosen Utrecht as a market, but you live and work in Nieuwe ter Aa. Then your company is registered with the Chamber of Commerce in a village with less than 500 inhabitants that they have probably never enjoyed in the city of Utrecht. If you can then say that you are based in Utrecht, this immediately ensures recognition. Of course, this also applies to The Hague, Arnhem, Nijmegen, or to whatever market you want to grow or expand.
Because you can use a living space, you also take care of the convenience of a customer to meet each other in a well-known and stately location. The Halo effect does the rest for your business.
A virtual office as a growth strategy – for large companies.
This strategy is advantageous for larger entities. There are companies that have to belong to a certain municipality for the business they do. With a virtual office in this municipality, they are therefore not bound to that location to establish their head office. Or vice versa, if the company wants to expand to other municipalities, then they can increase their operational market without an actual office.
A virtual office for your convenience
A work-life balance is crucial for mental health. When the two have become more and more mixed up since the beginning of the corona crisis, everyone was pressed with their noses on the facts. One way to make it clear is to have your business mail delivered to your business address, just as you do with your personal and business email.
With a virtual office you have multiple possibilities to deal with your mail. This way you can have letters scanned or pick up packages at the times you choose.
Of course, you can also combine the collection of your business mail with a variety of your workplace. During working hours you are welcome to be physically present at your virtual address. For example, even in times where work and private life can sometimes be mixed up, you still have a way to make clear dividing lines in them.
A virtual office for privacy
With your company name or Chamber of Commerce number, it is easy to find out what your company address is. For a variety of reasons, it may be nice that your home address or private address is not public. A location address in another place is the easiest way to protect yourself from this.
For entrepreneurs from abroad – expanding to The Netherlands with a virtual office
Let’s say you’re from Britain and you have a trade in English teapots. In addition to trading in your own country, you sell more and more teapots in The Netherlands. The market seems to be in your favour. In Great Britain you have now hired someone to focus fully on the Dutch market, but it is still in your office, you do not have anyone physically in The Netherlands yet. Expanding internationally is a pretty big step, and there are many unknown factors.
By taking a virtual office, you throw out the first lines to the new country, as it were, without taking too many risks. You can gain knowledge, start a network, get to know the market better, all without physically sending someone there.
If this first step has gone well, you can make a choice to place an employee in The Netherlands or even open an office there. To make this choice consider the knowledge you have gained from the virtual office which has proved crucial.
In addition to facilitating spontaneous growth, you can of course also choose as a strategy to tap into a new market. A virtual office is the perfect first step to gaining a foothold in that country. You can start with remote staff and gradually expand as you grow. Without this first step, the hurdle can be much bigger or perhaps too big. In that respect, a virtual office is the try-out package of international growth.
