Do You Need a Physical Address For Your Business? Here's What to Know

Solopreneurs and small businesses were already abandoning long-term, physical office space before the pandemic. This trend only accelerated with the pandemic, and there is no sign it will abate now that the economy and businesses are fully open. Some opted for fully remote home offices, while other have embraced hybrid models leveraging coworking spaces and day offices like those from Davinci Meeting Rooms.

10 Reasons Why You Need a Physical Mailing Address

For those utilizing these business models, there are privacy, safety, and legal issues involved in using a home address as your publicly listed business address. There are a number of reasons why a solopreneur or small business should reconsider using a home address versus a physical address. This also includes PO boxes for those that are able to use them (see below for those that cannot). 

Virtual office (or address) solutions like that from Davinci Virtual provide solopreneurs and small businesses with a fast and easy way to obtain a physical mailing address. Following are some of the reasons why you should consider a virtual office address:

Locating Your Business Anywhere

With a virtual office address, you can base your business anywhere. For example, if you have a technology consulting business, you might elect to base it in Seattle since it is known as a tech-incubation center. Alternatively, if you have a financial services company, you might prefer to base it in New York City. And if you’re an entertainment company serving the movie industry, you might prefer to have your mail sent to Hollywood.

Expanding Your Business

On a similar note, virtual office addresses provide solopreneurs and small businesses with the capability to demonstrate geographical presence without acquiring expensive office space in the area. For example, a landscaping company in Atlanta, Georgia could expand its business to serve Cincinnati, Ohio by acquiring a virtual office address—all without even flying to Cincinnati or opening an office there.

Getting a Lobby Directory Listing

Having your company name listed prominently in the lobby directory of a prestigious building conveys legitimacy, professionalism, and success. Whenever a visitor searches for your business or walks in the door of the building where your business is listed in the directory, their reaction is positive—confident in your business’ ability to meet or exceed their expectations.

Benefiting from a Lobby Greeter

A virtual office address, such as one from Davinci Virtual, also includes a lobby greeter who welcomes your clients and vendors to the office and offers them assistance. Lobby greeters are experts on parking logistics, area restaurants and bars, nearby hotels, traffic, and shuttles to other locations in town and to and from the airport. 

Instilling a Great First Impression

First impressions count and you want clients, prospects, and vendors to have a positive impression of your business when they visit. A physical address in a prestigious business building instills immediate credibility and provides a great impression that can go a long way in helping you to getting new business relationships off to a great start.

Forming a Business Entity

For new businesses, knowing how to go about forming an entity that reflects your business requirements and complies with the laws in your state and local jurisdictions is important. But most new businesses are not experts on the ins-and-outs of business entity formation. Virtual office providers like Davinci Virtual often offer this as a service. This removes the worry and responsibility of filing business entity documentation with all of the right authorities—which can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. 

Fulfilling Registered Agent Requirements

In instances where a business is to be formed as a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, limited partnership, or limited liability partnership, you must have a registered agent address in the state where you’re registering to do business. One of the members of the LLC will often be listed as the registered agent, which requires a physical mailing address so they can receive and sign for any service of process or other official notification and notify the company of receipt. A virtual office address enables a solopreneur or small business to avoid using the home address of the registered agent that is available publicly. This can have legal, safety, and privacy implications for the registered agent. 

Some virtual office address solutions also come with registered agent filing service options. Davinci Virtual Offices, for example, partners with Legalinc that offers an automated, digital registered platform that makes it simple and quick for businesses to complete registered agent filings. 

Tapping Into Coworking Space and/or Day Offices

Working from a home office may not be feasible every day of the week for a solopreneur or small business team. It can get lonely for some, and many can stagnate in terms of creativity and collaboration due to the lack of professional interactions. This is one of the reasons many solopreneurs and small businesses elect to use coworking spaces and/or day offices—either as a hybrid work arrangement (where they work some from the home office and some from a coworking space or day office) or full-time option. As virtual office solutions like Davinci Virtual Offices include coworking spaces and day offices, the ability to find and reserve space for just one person or a team is only a few clicks away. 

Leveraging Rented Meeting Rooms

Most businesses need a space to meet with prospects, clients, other vendors, and even their own internal teams. For those without a physical office with a meeting room, the options are limited to hotel conference rooms, coffee shops, or rented meeting space. Hotel conference rooms are expensive and often not equipped to facilitate productive meetings. Coffee shops are noisy, lack the privacy most meetings demand, and do not have the presentation and collaboration tools needed for a professional meeting. With many virtual office solutions, rented meeting space is available on demand and comes with the technologies and tools to ensure that your meeting is a big success.

Benefitting from Mail Receipt and Forwarding

Managing your mail can also consume a lot of valuable time for a solopreneur or small business. Virtual office solutions come with mail receipt and forwarding capabilities; mail sorting and secure storage until you pick it up in person. Alternatively, in the event that you are out of town on business or vacation or simply don’t have time to retrieve the mail, you can have the virtual office provider to forward your mail. 

Scaling Your Business with Virtual Office Addresses

Traditional business approaches required a solopreneur or small business to lease a physical office location in order to have a physical mailing address. But that isn’t a requisite in today’s digital age where virtual office addresses are readily available. Solopreneurs and businesses do not need to be in the same state or region of the country to claim a physical mailing address. Rather, they can find and secure one physical address or multiple ones that enable them to scale their business with virtual office addresses.

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence.

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Website: www.tirocommunications.com