I work solo from home and I was looking into the idea of a virtual office. If you're not familiar with this, you basically pay a few hundred dollars a month for a mailbox with a prestigious address, usually in a nice office building. You also get access to meeting rooms and copy rooms, with other options such as phone answering service. Apparently this is something a lot of attorneys do when starting out. You get the fancy address, but continue to work from your home office.
My first question is, would this be legal for a surveyor? My office is in Mississippi, and I would probably be interested in a virtual office in Memphis, Tennessee.
Secondly, if it is legal, has anyone here had one, and how did it work out?
The only reason I would want it is to help attract high-end clients. I hardly ever have a client at my current office, so I don't think that would be much of a problem.
I'm sorry to answer your question with a question.
Are you licensed in TN?
I would think that to open a survey office (virtual or anyplace) in a state you need to be licensed in that state.
It doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Your reputation based on your character will attract clients more than address. A faux office address is suspect too, at least to me.
I did know of a city surveyor who had out of town phone number here through a service. When someone called the number, the call was redirected to their city office.
Yes, I am licensed in TN. I wouldn't consider it otherwise.
C Billingsley, post: 327962, member: 1965 wrote: Yes, I am licensed in TN. I wouldn't consider it otherwise.
You know the market there better than anyone on this forum. If you think that what it takes to market your services.
Well then Go for it.
If you were in Oregon I think you would run into trouble. Having 2 offices and only 1 PLS is verboten. That is, a PLS can only offer services to the public out of one location. That is to prevent a PLS from operating a rubber stamp operation. By the letter of the law I don't think it would matter that one of those offices was "virtual" or that it was in another state.
Mark Mayer, post: 328008, member: 424 wrote: If you were in Oregon I think you would run into trouble. Having 2 offices and only 1 PLS is verboten. That is, a PLS can only offer services to the public out of one location. That is to prevent a PLS from operating a rubber stamp operation. By the letter of the law I don't think it would matter that one of those offices was "virtual" or that it was in another state.
If I were to do this, I would change my business address to the virtual office. Then I would just continue using the equipment at my home. That way, my business would only have one official office.
The states I am licensed in require a PLS in each office as well, but I don't think this would be any different from what I'm doing now. After all, as a solo operator, my office is currently left unattended every time I go to the field. Not saying I will do this, just something to think about.
I have some friends who have an engineering firm in Bartlett, TN. One of the engineers, a lady lives in Madison, MS. They opened a virtual office for her in Madison. Have it listed as one of their corporate offices. She works at home. All her cad work is done in Bartlett. Works for them. I'm an employee, and do contract services for them. All my work comes from Bartlett.
C Billingsley, post: 327779, member: 1965 wrote: I work solo from home and I was looking into the idea of a virtual office. If you're not familiar with this, you basically pay a few hundred dollars a month for a mailbox with a prestigious address, usually in a nice office building. You also get access to meeting rooms and copy rooms, with other options such as phone answering service. Apparently this is something a lot of attorneys do when starting out. You get the fancy address, but continue to work from your home office.
My first question is, would this be legal for a surveyor? My office is in Mississippi, and I would probably be interested in a virtual office in Memphis, Tennessee.
Secondly, if it is legal, has anyone here had one, and how did it work out?
The only reason I would want it is to help attract high-end clients. I hardly ever have a client at my current office, so I don't think that would be much of a problem.
All of my business comes from referrals, and most are high-end clients. None of them give a hoot that I work from home. None of them would be impressed if I opened a prestige office. What they do care about is quality work, on time, right the first time, and a fast response if they need to talk with me.
