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Home entrepreneurs rent virtual offices

Deanna Anderson’s business card says her company is located in Suite 300 of an office building on 44th Street in Phoenix. But on most days, you’ll find the 27-year-old entrepreneur working 20 miles away in her home in Gilbert, Ariz.

Anderson is among a new crop of business owners who use their home as their primary office hub and rely on outsourced administrative services to fill in the gaps.

It’s called the “virtual office.”

The concept is similar to signing a short-term lease for an executive suite, an option that has existed for the past few decades. But in a virtual office, tenants often spend most of their time working from their home and rent a conference room or other space for a few hours or an entire day.

The users typically do not sign leases but instead pay for monthly packages that include access to copier machines and printers, plus call forwarding and mail sorting services.

For Anderson, president of Organized Management Solutions LLC, a company that provides administrative services to nonprofit groups, it’s a matter of convenience.

“There are days ... where the little fuzzy slippers don’t leave my feet,” Anderson said. “I love it because I have a 10-month-old daughter and I’m not so ready to stick her into day care. I get to run my business full time and still take care of my family.”

It’s hard to say how much the use of virtual offices and related services is growing, because there are many variations on the concept, but experts believe it has been increasing in recent years as more people go into business for themselves.

Between 2004 and 2005, the number of self-employed business owners grew by 1.3 percent to 15.8 million, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Like any legitimate business, Anderson’s company has a telephone number and a mailing address.

When a customer dials her number, the call goes to a receptionist who answers it and then forwards it to Anderson’s cell phone. Mail and other packages arrive at the office building listed on her card and then can be forwarded to Anderson’s home address or held until she picks it up in person. When Anderson needs to meet a client, she reserves a small office or conference room and pays for the time she uses the space.

Users and providers of virtual offices say the system has many benefits.

Small businesses can cut costs by not hiring a full-time office administrator. They also can save time by focusing on building a customer base instead of answering phones and sorting mail. In addition, the setup allows businesses to adapt quickly to unexpected changes because they are not tied into a long-term office lease.

Because small firms get to “locate” their business in premier office buildings, they also get to use that address on their business cards and Web sites, which presents a more polished image to potential clients.

“The smaller (business owner) who wants to use our virtual-office program wants a (high-end) space image, so they want a really recognizable address,” said Sande Golgart, regional vice president over the West for Regus Group, a large provider of executive suites and “shared office” space.

The danger for virtual-office clients is surrendering control.

A business using a virtual office typically depends on the competency of a few receptionists who have to answer calls for sometimes a hundred or more clients. In many cases, the receptionists are the first contact a potential customer has with a small firm.

“I get people calling me all the time and they ask where this event is,” Anderson said. “They (the receptionists) really can’t (help) because they don’t work for me.”

Providers also say it is not uncommon for a customer to make a surprise visit to the office complex only to find the business owner is not there.

In those situations, a receptionist would tell the customer that the owner was out, then call the virtual-office client to let them know a customer stopped by, said Patty Hamann, manager of Cofco Executive Suites, which rents space in a Phoenix building.

Some question whether a virtual-office setup is misleading.

But operators say that many business owners are up front with potential customers and tell them that they are renting a temporary space.